BX  5199   .C25  A3  1916a 
Campbell,  R .  J.  1867-1956. 
A  spiritual  pilgrimage 


A  SPIRITUAL  PILGRIMAGE 


Digitized  by  the  Internet  Archive 
in  2015 


https://archive.org/details/spiritualpilgrimOOcamp_0 


A 

SPIRITUAL  PILGRIMAGE 


R.  J.  CAMPBELL,  M.A. 

PBIE9T  OF  ST.  PHILIp'b  CATHEDRAL  CHURCH,  BIRMINGHAM 


D.  APPLETON  AND  COMPANY 
NEW  YORK  1917 


Copyright,  1916,  bt 
D.  APPLETON  AND  COMPANY 


Printed  in  the  United  States  of  America 


PREFACE 


The  occasion  of  this  book  is  as  follows: 
In  May,  1916,  at  the  meetings  of  the  Congregational  Union 
of  England  and  Wales,  held  in  the  City  Temple,  the  Rev. 
Dr.  J.  D.  Jones  of  Bournemouth  made  public  reference  to 
my  ordination  in  the  Church  of  England,  and  said  he  thought 
some  explanation  was  due  from  me.  The  assembly  seemed 
to  be  of  the  same  opinion.  The  speaker  went  on  to  re- 
mark that  my  secession  from  Nonconformity  had  had  a 
disturbing  effect  upon  the  minds  of  some  of  the  younger 
ministers,  as  indeed  it  was  somewhat  startling  that  the 
minister  of  their  leading  church  should  take  such  a  step, 
involving  as  it  did  the  necessity  of  being  reordained.  This 
was  why,  without  any  wish  to  embarrass  me,  he  thought 
that  some  public  statement  of  my  reasons  for  the  change 
of  communion  was  called  for.  He  concluded  in  the  most 
courteous  and  Christian  manner  by  expressing  the  hope  in 
the  name  of  all  present  that  God's  blessing  would  rest  as 
richly  upon  my  new  ministry  as  upon  the  old. 

This  direct  appeal  from  a  friend  and  associate  of  many 
years'  standing  could  not  be  ignored,  especially  as  in  spirit 
and  language  it  was  so  wholly  free  from  any  taint  of 
sectarian  bitterness  or  resentment  at  my  action.  Being 
made  under  such  circumstances  it  was  practically  an  appeal 
from  the  entire  denomination  I  had  left,  to  say  why  I  had 
felt  compelled  to  take  such  a  course  after  so  long  a  period 


vi 


PREFACE 


spent  within  it.  Up  till  that  moment  I  had  said  nothing 
in  public  and  very  little  in  private  as  to  the  significance  of 
the  step.  I  had  asked  all  and  sundry  to  allow  me  to  main- 
tain this  reticence  at  least  for  the  time  being.  Our  country 
was  at  war,  and  anything  more  unseemly  than  a  religious 
wrangle  at  such  a  time  it  would  be  hard  to  imagine,  even 
if  I  had  been  disposed  to  face  the  prospect  of  such,  which 
I  was  not.  I  shall  never  again  be  a  party  to  religious  strife 
as  long  as  I  live,  if  I  can  possibly  avoid  it. 

All  kinds  of  attempts  have  been  made  to  break  down  my 
resolve.  From  the  day  I  resigned  the  City  Temple  to  the  day 
of  Dr.  Jones's  speech  I  had  been  besieged  by  callers  and 
correspondents  who  wished  to  draw  me  on  the  subject — 
some  of  them  from  kindly  motives,  others  not  so.  Deter- 
mined efforts  had  been  put  forth  to  hector  me  into  making 
a  pronouncement  which  would  have  raised  the  whole  Kikuyu 
issue  over  again  with  my  personality  for  the  storm  center, 
which  I  have  no  doubt  was  what  was  wanted.  I  could  not 
be  guilty  of  such  a  breach  of  good  taste  as  to  do  this  when 
I  had  barely  crossed  the  threshold  of  the  Church  of  England, 
and  had  I  done  it,  it  would  have  rightly  prejudiced  me  in 
the  eyes  of  those  with  whom  I  was  henceforth  to  be  identified 
in  Christian  fellowship.  So  I  gently  but  firmly  declined  to 
be  rushed  in  this  fashion. 

In  addition  many  of  my  more  immediate  friends  and 
followers  pressed  me  to  say,  as  soon  as  I  felt  free  to  do 
so,  what  had  influenced  me  most  in  coming  to  the  decision  to 
seek  orders  in  the  Church  of  England.  Few  of  them  were 
inclined  to  find  fault  with  it,  but  all  of  them  wanted  to 
know  how  I  stood  with  reference  to  the  ecclesiastical  and 
doctrinal  questions  involved. 


PREFACE 


After  taking  a  few  days  to  think  over  Dr.  Jones's  frank 
request,  I  decided  to  comply  with  it.  Nearly  a  year  has 
now  elapsed  since  I  said  good-by  to  the  City  Temple,  and  it 
is  easier  to  speak  out  now  than  it  was  then.  But  in  any 
event  I  do  not  feel  that  it  is  of  much  use  making  a  merely 
formal  statement.  It  is  best  to  tell  the  whole  story  of  my 
religious  life  and  let  it  speak  for  itself,  and  this  is  what  I 
have  done  in  these  pages.  That  story  is  not  known ;  it  has 
not  been  told  before ;  and  to  many  Nonconformists  as  well 
as  Churchmen  it  may  in  parts  be  a  revelation.  After  care- 
ful thought  I  have  taken  the  line  of  not  arguing  the  various 
debatable  issues  treated  in  the  narrative.  Most  of  the  argu- 
ments on  both  sides  are  already  outworn,  and  if  I  were  to 
plunge  into  the  discussion  of  them  I  should  only  stimulate 
the  irritation  and  party  feeling  which  it  is  my  principal  pur- 
pose to  allay.  I  have  therefore  confined  myself  to  describing 
step  by  step  the  road  by  which  I  came  to  the  position  I 
occupy  today.  I  may  be  mistaken,  but  I  think  this  is  better 
than  writing  a  series  of  essays  on  points  of  doctrine,  and 
is  really  more  informing  in  the  end,  though  it  involves  a 
considerable  measure  of  self-restraint. 

A  word  to  critics.  This  book  makes  no  pretensions  and 
challenges  no  comparisons.  It  is  a  plain  and  unadorned 
account,  honestly  set  forth,  of  one  man's  spiritual  evolution. 
Nothing  material  to  the  end  in  view  has  been  kept  back, 
but  I  have  not  felt  it  necessary  to  enter  into  private  and 
personal  details  which  could  add  nothing  to  the  elucidation 
of  the  subject. 

It  remains  but  to  add  that  if  anything  herein  contained 
hurts  anyone's  feelings  or  arouses  a  sense  of  injustice  in 
anyone's  mind  I  crave  pardon  in  advance.    It  is  far  indeed 


viii 


PREFACE 


from  my  intention.  My  earnest  desire  is  to  help  and  not 
to  hinder,  to  heal  and  not  to  wound. 

R.  J.  Campbell. 

Edgbaston. 


CONTENTS 

chapteb  nan 

I.    Early  Years   3 

II.    Youth  and  Early  Manhood       ....  24 

III.  The  University   41 

IV.  Ministry  in  Brighton  .       .              .       .  .69 
V.    Ministry  in  Brighton  (Continued)     ...  98 

VI.    Early  Days  in  London:  The  Labor  Movement  121 

VII.    Preaching,  Individual  Dealing,  Beginnings  of 

Religious  Controversy  .       .       .       .  .147 

VIII.    The  New  Theology   170 

IX.    The  New  Theology:  The  Parting  of  the  Ways  202 

X.    Withdrawal  from  Nonconformity    .       .       .  224 

XI.    Reordination      .......  253 

XII.    Towards  Reunion   277 


A  SPIRITUAL  PILGRIMAGE 


CHAPTER  I 

EARLY  YEARS 

My  childhood  was  spent  with  my  maternal  grand- 
parents in  the  north  of  Ireland,  whither  I  had  been 
taken  from  London  when  I  was  a  few  months  old  in 
the  hope  of  saving  my  life,  a  well-founded  hope,  as 
it  turned  out.  But  I  had  a  great  struggle  to  survive, 
and  should  never  have  done  it  but  for  the  tender  and 
solicitous  care  lavished  upon  me  by  those  in  whose 
charge  I  was  thus  placed.  My  constitution  was  one 
of  extreme  delicacy  from  the  first,  and  has  always 
remained  so,  though,  thank  God,  I  have  not  the 
battles  with  ill  health  now  such  as  form  a  large  part 
of  my  early  memories;  or  at  least  I  do  not  suffer 
so  much  pain.  As  a  child  I  was  scarcely  ever  free 
from  pain  of  one  sort  and  another,  and  I  think  this 
fact  has  given  me  a  certain  amount  of  insight  into  and 
sympathy  with  the  woes  of  others,  both  physical  and 
mental.  It  is  often  stated,  I  hope  with  some  ele- 
ment of  justice,  that  this  is  a  faculty  which  has  char- 
acterized my  pulpit  ministry  throughout  its  whole 
course.  If  so,  I  have  undoubtedly  paid  a  price  for  it. 
On  several  occasions  before  I  was  ten  years  old  I 
was  given  up  by  the  doctors,  and  once  was  actually 
pronounced  dead.    My  grandmother  and  my  old 

3 


4         A  SPIRITUAL  PILGRIMAGE 

nurse  (a  woman  named  Jean  Colvin,  whose  quaint 
personality  is  as  fresh  to  my  recollection  today  as  it 
ever  was)  refused  to  accept  this  verdict  and  worked 
away  at  restoring  respiration  till  their  efforts  were 
crowned  with  almost  miraculous  success,  and  here  I 
am  still.  And,  strange  to  say,  in  spite  of  all  this 
chronic  invalidism,  with  its  not  infrequent  and  dan- 
gerous crises,  I  was  remarkably  happy.  It  did  not 
make  me  at  all  morbid,  nor  can  I  remember  dwelling 
upon  it  in  thought.  The  recognition  of  this  is  a 
great  comfort  to  me  sometimes  nowadays  when  as 
part  of  my  clerical  duty  I  go  to  visit  sick  children 
in  hospitals,  for  I  think  it  quite  probable  that  the  piti- 
fulness  of  their  condition  is  not  realized  by  them- 
selves. Perhaps  the  happiest  period  of  my  life  was 
this  period  of  childhood  and  early  youth,  for  I  was 
surrounded  with  love  and  treated  with  an  unfailing 
consideration  which  I  took  as  a  matter  of  course. 

On  my  uncle's  not  very  large  estate  were  a  num- 
ber of  cottier  tenants  whose  children  were  allowed 
to  play  with  me,  and,  as  I  now  see,  though  I  did  not 
see  it  then,  were  expected  to  defer  to  my  wishes  and 
spoil  me  like  the  grown-ups.  They  did  not  do  it, 
though,  or  not  to  any  very  great  extent.  These 
early  companions  of  mine  quarreled  with  me  now  and 
then,  borrowed  my  toys  and  lent  me  theirs,  got  mixed 
up  with  all  kinds  of  questions  as  to  meum  and  tuum, 
took  lengthy  excursions  with  me  through  woods  and 
fields,  paid  me  visits  and  kept  me  company  when  I 
was  laid  up,  but  I  cannot  recall  that  they  showed 
me  any  particular  deference  or  that  I  expected  it 


EARLY  YEARS 


5 


except  when  our  elders  were  about,  and  then  it  was 
very  artificial.  The  only  ascendancy  I  ever  possessed 
over  them  was  that  of  superior  knowledge  and  a 
more  active  imagination.  Having  plenty  of  time  on 
my  hands,  I  became  an  untiring  reader,  especially 
in  history,  and  I  could  always  rig  up  a  game  in 
which  we  individually  impersonated  famous  historical 
characters  and  repeated  their  doughty  deeds.  My 
own  favorite  hero  was  Sir  William  Wallace,  cham- 
pion of  the  liberties  of  Scotland,  a  giant  in  stature 
as  in  generalship.  There  must  have  been  something 
grotesque  in  such  a  puny  creature  as  I  was  inva- 
riably choosing  such  a  part,  but  I  did.  The  others 
had  to  content  themselves  with  being  Robert  Bruce 
or  the  Black  Douglas  or  someone  equally  eminent 
or  ferocious:  I  stuck  to  Wallace.  Nobody,  so  far 
as  I  am  aware,  ever  wanted  to  be  Edward  I,  once 
I  had  explained  to  my  own  satisfaction  and  theirs  the 
many  monstrous  crimes  and  misdemeanors  of  that 
monarch,  "the  hammer  of  the  Scottish  nation." 

It  will  be  observed  that  our  preference  was  given 
to  the  chief  personages  of  Scottish  history  although 
we  lived  in  Ireland.  Not  all  English  readers  may 
understand  the  reason  for  this.  It  was  simply  that 
we  were  Scottish  in  origin  ourselves.  I  never  heard 
any  dialect  but  broad  Scots  during  the  whole  period 
of  my  residence  in  that  district.  We  had  a  great 
contempt  for  England  and  everything  English, 
which  was  only  exceeded  by  our  hatred  of  Ireland  and 
everything  Irish.  We  did  not  put  it  in  that  way,  but 
that  is  what  it  came  to.   We  were  terribly  down  on 


6         A  SPIRITUAL  PILGRIMAGE 


the  Papists,  the  Home-Rulers,  and  everything  they 
represented.  We  firmly  and  devoutly  believed  that 
outside  our  own  little  corner  of  Ulster  all  the  rest 
of  Ireland  was  in  a  hopelessly  benighted  condition 
and  more  or  less  seditious.  What  we  thought  sedi- 
tion was  is  not  clear  to  me,  considering  that  our 
loyalty  to  the  flag  could  not  be  held  to  be  identical 
with  loyalty  to  England,  but  only  with  hostility  to 
Catholic  Ireland.  It  strikes  me  that  that  is  prin- 
cipally what  Ulster  loyalty  is  now.  When  my  play- 
mates and  I  were  not  crudely  rehearsing  scenes  from 
Scottish  or  Continental  history  under  my  instruction 
we  were  reviving  the  battle  of  the  Boyne  and  breath- 
ing all  sorts  of  truculent  sentiments  against  the 
descendants  of  the  followers  of  King  James  as  con- 
trasted with  those  of  King  William.  I  do  not  think, 
however,  that  I  ever  wanted  to  be  King  William  when 
these  great  events  were  toward.  Being  a  Dutchman, 
he  was  not  sufficiently  attractive,  notwithstanding  the 
tremendous  reputation  he  possessed  and  still  possesses 
among  Ulster  Protestants.  He  and  King  James 
are  the  Ormazd  and  Ahriman  of  Ulster  polemics; 
and  I  was  amused  to  observe,  as  my  train  was  draw- 
ing into  Belfast  when  I  paid  a  summer  visit  there 
three  years  ago,  an  immense  effigy  of  William  chalked 
on  a  wall.  As  I  remarked  to  the  friend  who  was 
traveling  with  me,  himself  an  Ulsterman,  one  might 
never  have  been  away;  thirty  years  had  made  no 
difference.  There  before  us  was  the  protagonist  of 
Irish  Protestantism,  as  always  on  horseback,  in  the 
old  familiar  pose  with  hand  and  sword  uplifted,  point- 


EARLY  YEARS 


7 


ing  the  way  across  the  Boyne  water  to  the  discom- 
fiture of  James's  popish  hosts.  To  hear  an  Ulster 
Orangeman  talk  one  would  think  the  battle  of  the 
Boyne  ranked  with  that  of  Waterloo  and  had  far 
more  important  results.  How  queer  it  seemed  to  be 
sitting  in  that  railway  carriage  a  few  hours  after 
leaving  London,  and  to  be  back  in  a  mental  atmos- 
phere, and  in  the  presence  of  facts  and  symbols,  of 
which  the  average  Londoner  had  never  even  heard! 
Underneath  the  effigy  of  the  deliverer  was  scrawled 
the  time-honored  objurgation,  "To  hell  with  the 
Pope!"  Had  we  been  in  sentimental  mood  it  might 
have  moved  us  to  tears,  because  of  the  tender  mem- 
ories it  evoked.  As  it  was  I  am  afraid  it  only  moved 
us  to  regret  that  the  spirit  of  faction  and  unreason- 
ing prejudice  still  so  evidently  prevented  the  realiza- 
tion of  Irish  unity.  Sir  Edward  Carson's  volunteers 
were  marching  through  the  streets.  They  were  to 
have  a  grand  rally  the  next  day  at  Coleraine,  when 
that  redoubtable  leader  himself  was  to  speak.  It  was 
all  very  homelike,  but  more  or  less  like  a  dream 
too. 

The  greatest  day  in  the  calendar  in  my  youth 
was,  of  course,  the  twelfth  of  July,  the  anniversary  of 
the  battle  aforesaid;  and  for  months  beforehand  the 
Orangemen  of  our  neighborhood  would  be  prepar- 
ing for  it,  marching  and  countermarching  with 
drums  and  fifes  through  all  the  countryside.  They 
thought  about  little  else  as  far  as  one  can  ascertain. 
And  even  in  the  winter  the  same  set  of  ideas  was  kept 
up — in  fact,  all  the  year  round.   In  what  they  called 


8         A  SPIRITUAL  PILGRIMAGE 


"the  lang  fore-suppers,"  that  is,  the  winter  evenings, 
the  men  of  all  ages  would  gather  in  the  farm  kitchens 
and  talk  and  talk  and  talk  Orangeism,  and  tell  blood- 
curdling stories  of  the  evil  deeds  of  the  Fenians  in 
the  past.  I  knew  every  one  of  those  stories;  I  know 
them  now.  And  the  worst  of  it  is  that  many  of  them 
were  true.  There  is  no  sadder  tale  in  existence  than 
that  of  the  bitter  and  relentless  feuds  of  the  two  races 
and  faiths  into  which  Ireland  is  divided.  I  say  the 
two  races  and  faiths,  for  somehow  the  settlers  of  the 
English  pale  farther  south  have  not  preserved  the 
same  fierce  antagonism  to  the  native  Irish  that  is 
still  evinced  by  the  Scottish  Presbyterians  of  the 
north.  And  when  the  twelfth  of  July  came,  what  a 
glorious  time  we  children  had! — and  the  same  might 
be  said  of  our  grave  and  reverend  seniors.  I  do  not 
know  what  may  be  the  case  now,  but  I  know  what 
was  bound  to  happen  then.  Scores  of  thousands  of 
Orangemen  marched  in  procession  to  an  open-air 
rendezvous  where  enthusiastic  inflammatory  speeches 
were  made,  bellicose  songs  sung — everybody  knew 
them — and  much  strong  waters  imbibed.  The  Ulster- 
man  would  not  thank  you  for  beer,  or  would 
not  in  my  young  days;  his  consumption  was  spirits 
and  plenty  of  it.  The  processions  were  gay  with 
banners  and  colored  sashes.  High  officials  of  the 
various  Lodges  even  wore  orange  cloaks  and  carried 
Bibles  and  mallets.  What  the  latter  were  meant  to 
symbolize  I  do  not  know,  but  they  were  never  omitted 
when  we  of  the  younger  generation  imitated  our  eld- 
ers in  the  way  of  fervent  demonstrations.    That  we 


EARLY  YEARS 


did  not  in  the  least  understand  what  all  the  fuss 
was  about  made  no  matter;  I  do  not  suppose  very 
many,  either  old  or  young,  troubled  their  heads 
greatly  about  that.  If  the  twelfth  ended  without  a 
few  casualties  or  even  a  street  riot  or  two  it  was 
exceptional.  One  of  my  most  vivid  recollections  is 
that  of  an  Orangeman  who  was  killed  on  the  roadside 
by  some  Fenians  in  a  passing  side-car.  Being  rather 
the  worse  for  drink,  he  had  been  yelling  his  party 
war-cries  at  the  top  of  his  voice,  and  they  leaped  off 
the  vehicle  and  bludgeoned  him  to  death,  driving  off 
immediately  afterwards  at  full  speed.  I  happened 
with  others  to  reach  the  spot  just  before  the  breath 
left  his  body.  It  was  a  ghastly  sight,  never  to  be 
forgotten;  and  its  immediate  result,  as  might  be  ex- 
pected, was  to  infuriate  all  the  already  dangerously 
excited  Orangemen,  and  reprisals  quickly  followed. 
Many  people  were  injured,  and  I  believe  one  or  two 
were  slain.  A  priest  had  a  narrow  escape  with  his 
life,  and  his  house  and  church  were  wrecked.  I  re- 
member watching  with  my  uncle  from  the  safe  alti- 
tude of  an  hotel  window  the  military  riding  at  a 
quick  trot  up  the  street  of  the  neighboring  market 
town  and  the  crowd  fleeing  before  them.  This  was 
not  a  very  unusual  occurrence;  it  was  only  the  kind 
of  thing  that  was  to  be  looked  for  on  or  about  the 
twelfth  of  July. 

From  this  brief  description  it  will  be  seen  that 
the  mental  climate  in  which  I  spent  my  early 
days  was  utterly  different  from  that  of  England, 
so  different,  in  fact,  that  I  am  at  a  loss  how  best 


10       A  SPIRITUAL  PILGRIMAGE 

to  indicate  it  clearly.  These  people  were  intensely- 
conservative  both  in  religion  and  politics.  The 
family  to  which  I  belonged  had  never  been  anything 
but  Tory,  and  would  have  had  no  sympathy  whatever 
with  most  of  the  aspirations  of  English  Noncomform- 
ists  in  the  political  and  social  sphere,  and  less  than 
might  be  supposed  in  the  religious — but  I  shall  come 
to  that  presently.  I  have  not  met  with  anything  in 
England  exactly  resembling  the  kind  of  patriarchal 
arrangements  with  which  our  household  affairs  were 
conducted.  We  had  the  same  servants  from  youth 
to  old  age.  No  one  ever  thought  of  leaving,  unless 
to  go  to  America  or  Australia  to  push  his  fortunes. 
No  maid  "gave  notice"  when  rebuked  by  my  grand- 
mother ;  it  would  have  been  no  use,  her  mother  would 
have  sent  her  straight  back.  They  did  not  even  leave 
when  they  got  married,  but  remained  about  the  place 
(unless  they  went  to  reside  with  their  husbands  in 
another  township  altogether),  coming  in  every  now 
and  then  to  render  special  service  as  it  might  be 
wanted.  And  yet  there  was  none  of  the  caste  dis- 
tinction that  is  so  tenacious  in  England,  very  little 
of  the  same  fear  of  social  conventions,  and  none  of 
the  vulgar  desire  to  be  considered  correct  and  stylish. 
That  peculiarly  English  habit  of  mind  was  com- 
pletely absent  from  the  folk  with  whom  I  had  to  do.  I 
have  never  seen  finer  men  anywhere  than  the  men 
of  that  part  of  the  world.  Tall,  strong,  muscular, 
they  were  more  like  Australians  than  Britons  in 
physique,  but  fresh  colored  and  bright  eyed.  Alas, 
I  am  afraid  this  robust  stock  has  become  greatly  de- 


EARLY  YEARS 


11 


pleted  within  the  last  twenty  years,  chiefly  through 
emigration.  For  reasons  into  which  one  need  not 
enter  here  the  rural  population  of  Antrim  has  con- 
siderably diminished  during  the  period  in  question. 
Economic  influences  have  been  at  work  there  as  in 
England,  drawing  the  young  men  away  from  the 
country  to  the  towns  or  driving  them  abroad.  I 
remember  many  years  ago  coming  across  a  sentence 
in  the  Spectator,  I  think  it  was,  to  the  effect  that  if 
one  were  to  discover  a  spot  anywhere  on  this  planet 
in  which  a  human  steam  engine  was  making  things 
hum  generally  the  chances  were  that  he  was  an 
Ulsterman.  That  is  not  an  unjust  reflection,  as  the 
records  of  the  English-speaking  race  abundantly 
testify.  Some  of  our  greatest  empire-builders  have 
been  Ulstermen,  such  as  Sir  George  White,  the 
brilliant  defender  of  Ladysmith,  and  Sir  Samuel 
Wilson,  formerly  Agent-General  for  Australia;  as 
a  boy  the  latter  was  my  grandfather's  playmate.  It 
seems  a  pity  that  the  vigorous  country  life  to  which 
I  was  accustomed  as  a  child  should  have  so  largely 
disappeared,  but  it  has.  I  have  never  looked  upon 
what  was  to  me  a  more  melancholy  spectacle  than  that 
revealed  in  a  drive  through  the  haunts  of  my  youth 
in  1913.  House  after  house  whose  inhabitants  I  had 
known  well,  including  the  one  in  which  I  was  brought 
up,  lay  in  ruins,  and  an  air  of  silence  and  desolation 
brooded  over  all.  It  was  a  great  and  saddening 
change.  It  may  not  be  the  same  everywhere,  but  it 
was  the  first  thing  that  thrust  itself  upon  my  atten- 
tion in  the  locality  I  had  known  best. 


12       A  SPIRITUAL  PILGRIMAGE 


In  those  days  of  long  ago  I  must  have  been  a 
strange  solitary  boy.  I  liked  company,  but  I  liked 
being  alone  more.  My  uncle,  my  mother's  brother, 
indulged  me  greatly.  Being  unmarried,  he  expected 
to  adopt  me  as  his  son,  though  whether  my  father 
and  mother  would  ever  have  agreed  to  this  as  a  per- 
manency I  do  not  know.  At  all  events  his  death 
in  America  while  I  was  still  in  my  early  teens  put 
an  end  to  the  idea.  He  used  to  buy  me  all  the 
books  I  wanted,  which  is  saying  a  good  deal,  and 
in  fine  summer  weather  I  would  fill  a  satchel  with 
them  and  another  with  food,  and  go  off  to  spend  the 
day  by  myself  in  the  fields,  returning  at  bedtime.  I 
had  a  perfect  passion  for  nature  in  all  its  moods,  and 
had  a  sort  of  mystic  feeling  about  it.  I  never  felt 
less  alone  than  when  in  communion  with  the  holy 
presence  of  which  I  was  conscious  everywhere  in 
those  habitual  retreats.  I  knew  what  Wordsworth's 
nature  worship  meant  long  before  I  knew  Words- 
worth; it  was  exactly  my  own.  I  used  to  feel  that 
the  whole  landscape  was  mysteriously  alive,  and  every 
minutest  object  in  it,  every  tiny  flower  and  thorn, 
became  to  my  naive  perceptions  instinct  with  Heaven. 
Nor  have  I  ever  lost  this  entirely.  It  gave  me  a 
view  of  life  which  I  can  only  call  sacramental,  and 
which  has  remained  with  me  all  through  my  mature 
years  and  helped  to  put  me  where  I  am  today,  in 
Holy  Orders  in  the  Church  of  England  and  within 
her  sacramental  system.  For  weeks  together  I  would 
pursue  these  solitary  wanderings  every  day,  read- 
ings, dreaming,  wondering,  after  my  own  fashion 


EARLY  YEARS 


13 


praying.  I  remember  making  for  myself  an  oratory 
in  a  remote  corner  of  our  woods,  and  carving  a 
rude  crucifix  for  it  as  well  as  erecting  a  rough  stone 
altar.  Why  I  did  this  I  cannot  imagine,  as  I  am 
sure  I  never  saw  anything  of  the  kind  anywhere  else 
at  that  time,  and  never  took  part  in  anything  ap- 
proximating to  Catholic  worship,  never  went  inside 
a  Roman  Catholic  church,  in  fact.  Perhaps  I  may 
have  taken  note  of  Episcopalian  sanctuaries,  as  we 
had  some  Episcopalian  connections,  but  it  is  prac- 
tically certain  that  there  would  be  no  crucifix  there, 
nor  any  of  the  other  appurtenances  of  elaborate  ritual 
and  ceremonial. 

My  earliest  recollections  of  public  worship  are  as- 
sociated with  Cloughwater  Presbyterian  Church  of 
Ireland  meeting-house.  It  was  very  awesome  to  my 
juvenile  intelligence,  very  decorous  and  dignified, 
and  withal  very  plain.  The  services  were  long.  To 
the  best  of  my  recollection  we  went  in  at  eleven  and 
came  out  at  two  or  thereabouts.  Perhaps  I  am  mis- 
taken in  this.  It  may  only  have  seemed  as  long  as 
that  to  a  small  person  intent  rather  upon  what  was 
to  be  seen  outside.  But  I  do  not  remember  grumbling 
at  it  nor  objecting  to  going;  I  should  as  soon  have 
thought  of  flying.  It  all  seemed  to  me  in  the  natural 
order  of  things,  and  I  felt  it  to  be  very  solemn  and 
impressive.  So  it  was.  Anything  more  reverent,  si- 
lent and  orderly  than  the  demeanor  of  the  congrega- 
tion that  assembled  in  that  unpretentious  four-square 
building  it  would  be  impossible  to  find;  and  I  shall 
never  forget  the  shock  I  received  the  first  time  I 


14       A  SPIRITUAL  PILGRIMAGE 


was  present  at  a  Nonconformist  service  in  England 
and  heard  the  buzz  of  conversation  that  went  on 
before  the  worship  began  and  was  resumed  imme- 
diately it  stopped.  The  atmosphere  of  North  of 
Ireland  Presbyterianism  and  Episcopalianism  had 
not  prepared  me  for  it — far  otherwise.  I  think  my 
grandfather  was  an  elder  of  Cloughwater  about  this 
time,  but  of  this  I  cannot  be  sure  as  he  died  sud- 
denly while  I  was  still  very  young.  But  I  can  quite 
clearly  recollect  my  uncle  acting  as  precentor  and 
"raising  the  Psalm."  Whether  this  was  a  temporary 
duty  on  his  part  or  not  I  cannot  say;  he  had  a  very 
fine  voice  and  some  knowledge  of  music,  but  I  can 
hardly  think  of  him  as  ecclesiastically  minded.  He 
was  more  of  a  sportsman  and  social  leader,  and  one 
of  the  best  and  most  daring  riders  I  ever  saw.  One 
of  my  greatest  delights  was  to  watch  him  take  the 
fences  in  our  annual  steeplechase.  He  was  able  to 
perform  feats  on  horseback  that  I  have  never  seen 
ventured  before  or  since. 

My  grandfather  was  very  different.  He  was  a 
grave,  silent  man,  simple,  devout,  and  of  a  gracious, 
loving  nature.  I  have  never  known  anyone  whose  ex- 
pression so  belied  his  character,  for  he  always  looked 
somewhat  stern,  and  at  times  even  grim,  but  I  should 
think  he  never  hurt  anyone  or  anything  in  his  life.1 
He  was  the  gentlest,  kindest  and  most  patient  of 

1  There  is  a  story  that  he  once  shot  a  robin,  and  was  so  re- 
morseful about  it  that  he  never  afterwards  took  a  gun  into  his 
hands.  My  uncle  had  no  such  scruples  and  was  an  excellent  shot. 
His  shooting  parties  were  a  great  delight  to  me. 


EARLY  YEARS 


15 


men.  No  one  ever  saw  him  out  of  temper  or  heard 
him  raise  his  voice  in  rebuking  a  defaulter  in  the 
house  or  out  of  it.  Nor  was  his  piety  of  the  gloomy 
sort,  notwithstanding  the  mental  environment  in 
which  we  dwelt.  I  have  read  many  things  about  the 
Scottish  Presbyterianism  of  that  period  and  earlier, 
which  remind  me  vividly  of  my  youth,  but  I  cannot 
say  that  I  was  ever  made  to  feel  the  somberness  and 
oppressiveness  of  the  Sabbath  which  the  writers  are 
wont  to  describe.  When  I  went  to  see  "Bunty  Pulls 
the  Strings"  I  found  myself  back  among  the  good  folk 
of  my  childhood,  but  with  one  exception :  Sunday  was 
never  a  dreary  day  to  me,  nor  was  the  practice  of 
religion  ever  tiresome.  My  grandfather  would  not 
have  it  so,  and  my  grandmother  was  of  the  same 
mind.  True  we  had  the  blinds  drawn,  and  nobody 
ever  whistled  or  sang — unless  it  was  the  metrical 
psalms,  for  we  rarely  if  ever  had  a  hymn — but  I  was 
not  wearied  with  religious  exercises  nor  repressed 
when  I  wanted  to  play.  I  can  see  my  grandfather's 
sober  smile  at  this  moment  at  the  puzzling  questions 
with  which  I  plied  him  about  the  Bible,  the  Covenan- 
ters, etc.  He  did  his  best  to  answer  them,  dear 
good  man  that  he  was,  but  I  cannot  remember  any 
of  the  answers.  I  can  remember  my  grandmother's 
much  better,  for  she  was  bolder  on  points  of  theology 
and  freely  said  what  she  thought.  When  I  come  to 
think  of  the  Auld  Licht  atmosphere  in  which  my 
grandparents  were  born  and  bred  I  am  amazed  at 
the  broad,  human  way,  conjoined  to  a  profound 
spirituality,  in  which  they  lived  their  life  and  or- 


16       A  SPIRITUAL  PILGRIMAGE 


dered  their  household  in  the  fear  of  God.  My  grand- 
mother was  something  of  a  Biblical  critic  without  ever 
having  heard  of  such  a  being.  I  had  a  great  fondness 
for  the  Old  Testament  because  of  its  picturesque 
stories,  and  when  I  told  the  old  lady  that  I  did  not 
think  it  quite  fair  of  the  Almighty  to  penalize  the 
world  so  severely  for  Adam's  transgression  she  quite 
agreed,  but  added  that  she  thought  the  account  must 
be  more  or  less  allegorical,  which  was  good,  sound 
sense  and  would  be  still  in  any  assembly  of  theolo- 
gians. She  had  some  strong  things  to  say  also  about 
the  morals  of  the  patriarchs  and  the  unedifying  lan- 
guage of  certain  portions  of  Scripture.  David  was  a 
favorite  of  hers,  but  she  regarded  him  with  a  critical 
eye  as,  indeed,  she  did  every  Old  Testament  char- 
acter. 

My  grandmother  was  a  remarkable  woman  in 
every  way,  and  would  have  been  recognized  as  such  in 
any  society.  No  one  could  fail  to  be  arrested  by 
her  appearance  in  the  first  place.  She  was  like  "a 
Roman  matron,  tall  and  straight."  As  I  remember 
her  best  she  carried  herself  with  a  dignity  which  no 
one  ever  ventured  to  disturb.  Self-respect  and 
strength  of  purpose  were  written  in  every  line  of  her 
face,  and  yet  there  was  no  suggestion  of  self -con- 
sciousness in  anything  she  said  or  did.  I  here  set 
down  my  grateful  testimony  that  I  owe  more  to  her 
noble  example  and  untiring  devotion  than  to  anyone 
with  whom  my  lot  has  been  cast.  She  was  utterly 
unselfish,  though  not  exactly  what  one  would  call 
amiable,  in  which  latter  respect  she  was  a  great  con- 


EARLY  YEARS 


17 


trast  to  my  dear  mother  whom  I  really  came  to 
know  much  later,  and  who,  I  rejoice  to  say,  is  still 
living  and  active  in  body  and  mind.  The  two  women 
were  alike  in  their  devotion  to  those  about  them,  and 
in  the  fact  that  they  never  thought  of  themselves  at 
all  in  connection  with  the  service  they  continuously 
rendered;  but  my  grandmother  was  of  sterner  mold 
than  my  mother,  and  not  one  to  brook  any  crossing 
of  her  will  when  she  had  once  made  up  her  mind 
as  to  what  ought  to  be  done.  I  think  all  who  had 
to  do  with  her  stood  a  little  in  awe  of  her — all,  that 
is,  except  me.  There  was  a  saying  then,  and  still 
is,  amongst  the  members  of  our  family,  that  I  was 
a  privileged  person  from  the  first  in  that  establish- 
ment, and  the  recipient  of  a  tenderness  not  bestowed 
in  the  same  degree  upon  anyone  else.  Probably  my 
need  was  greater,  but  everyone  who  knew  my  grand- 
mother will  agree  with  me  that,  even  if  I  had  been 
well  and  strong,  my  opinion  of  her  would  have  been 
just  the  same;  it  would  be  impossible  to  think  of 
her  with  anything  but  reverence  and  gratitude.  To 
all  in  the  neighborhood  she  was  simply  "the  mistress"; 
and  I  am  told  that  when  after  my  uncle's  death  she 
left  the  old  home  to  come  and  reside  with  my  father 
and  mother  in  England,  the  most  touching  farewell 
she  received  was  from  a  small,  silent  crowd  which 
stood  bareheaded  to  see  her  pass  as  she  was  driven 
away.  No  one  who  knew  her  in  her  old  age  could 
have  much  idea  of  what  she  was  in  her  prime.  The 
loss  of  her  only  son  completely  broke  her,  and  she 
never  had  much  hold  on  life  afterwards.    The  only 


18       A  SPIRITUAL  PILGRIMAGE 


person  she  cared  much  about  in  England  outside 
the  family  circle  was  the  vicar  of  the  rural  parish 
where  she  dwelt,  and  she  was  buried  with  Anglican 
rites.  It  is  quite  in  keeping  with  her  character  that 
she  should  have  retained  her  interest  in  public  aff  airs 
up  to  the  last.  She  was  a  vigorous  anti-Home-Ruler, 
and  I  believe  the  only  person  in  the  world  whom 
she  sincerely  detested  was  Mr.  Gladstone.  When 
she  died  my  mother  found  a  history  of  Scotland 
under  her  pillow. 

As  I  was  too  delicate  to  have  any  regular  schooling, 
and,  in  fact,  never  went  outside  the  doors  at  all  in 
winter,  I  had  to  be  taught  at  home,  and  very  well 
done  it  was.  I  had  the  best  instructress  that  any 
child  could  desire,  a  lady  named  Andrews,  a  member 
of  a  family  as  talented  as  herself,  and  which  has 
given  many  sons  and  daughters  to  the  Church  and  the 
scholastic  profession.  Miss  Andrews  was  a  delightful 
teacher,  with  ways  of  her  own  for  stimulating  the 
thirst  for  knowledge  in  a  small  boy.  Not  that  I 
needed  much  stimulating.  She  used  to  declare  that 
I  hunted  her  down  remorselessly  with  new  interroga- 
tories daily  without  giving  her  time  to  read  up  the 
last  lot.  I  think  this  was  only  a  device  to  lure  me 
on,  for  I  never  knew  her  baffled  by  any  question  that 
issued  from  my  juvenile  brain.  She  used  to  take  me 
home  with  her  to  see  her  father,  who  deserves  a 
chapter  to  himself.  He  was  a  real  character,  the 
like  of  whom  is  never  seen  today.  A  genius,  a  fine 
scholar,  and  an  exceedingly  forceful  personality,  he 
kept  school  in  a  small  town  not  very  far  away,  and 


EARLY  YEARS 


19 


has  turned  out  from  that  little  intellectual  factory 
quite  a  large  number  of  men  who  have  distinguished 
themselves  in  the  universities  and  otherwise  in  later 
life.  If  I  am  not  mistaken,  the  present  Lord  Bryce 
was  once  through  his  hands ;  at  any  rate  that  eminent 
publicist's  father  was  well  acquainted  with  the  fine 
old  pedagogue  of  whom  I  speak.  To  see  Mr.  An- 
drews teaching  school  was  a  sight  never  to  be  for- 
gotten, and  not  easy  to  describe.  He  sat  perched 
on  a  high  seat,  monarch  of  all  he  surveyed,  with  a 
very  tall,  wide-brimmed  silk  hat  slightly  cocked  over 
one  eye,  and,  usually,  with  a  pipe  in  his  mouth. 
He  had  the  vision  of  a  hawk.  No  delinquency  ever 
escaped  him,  no  matter  how  busy  he  might  be  with  a 
class,  and  he  had  a  most  disconcerting  way,  too,  of 
bringing  the  offender  to  justice.  He  would  hurl 
his  cane — which  was  always  kept  under  his  arm  ready 
for  use — straight  at  the  lawbreaker,  who  might  be 
foolish  enough  to  imagine  that  he  could  do  evil  sur- 
reptitiously and  was  beyond  range  if  found  out,  and 
so  unerring  was  the  aim  that  when  the  missile  reached 
its  object  no  further  discipline  was  needed  as  a  rule. 
The  person  hit  was  expected  to  bring  the  cane  back 
to  the  thrower,  with  dire  consequences  sometimes ! 

It  was  Mr.  Andrews  who  started  me  in  Latin,  to 
the  no  small  amazement  of  his  family,  who  had  never 
known  him  to  do  such  a  thing  before.  To  bother 
about  small  boys  was  scarcely  in  his  line,  and  to  speak 
quite  frankly  they  were  terrified  of  him.  What 
pleased  him  was  that  I  was  not  terrified  of  him,  and 
that  I  took  a  delighted  interest  in  his  library.  It 


20       A  SPIRITUAL  PILGRIMAGE 


was  he,  too,  who  really  set  me  upon  the  study  of  his- 
tory and  literature  as  distinguished  from  mere  pro- 
miscuous reading  therein.  He  made  me  work  at  it, 
and  regularly  lent  me  standard  authors  from  his  own 
shelves — a  great  honor,  indeed,  which  I  doubt  if  Miss 
Andrews  would  have  dared  solicit  for  herself.  Usu- 
ally he  would  fix  the  exact  date  when  the  book  must 
be  returned,  and  I  verily  believe  that  if  I  had  missed 
once  he  would  never  have  lent  me  another.  To  be 
precise  I  did  miss  once,  but  under  rather  untoward 
circumstances.  I  had  one  of  my  fearful  illnesses, 
and  I  am  told  that  in  my  delirium  it  was  pitiful  to 
hear  me  begging  Mr.  Andrews  to  note  that  I  had 
brought  back  his  History  of  Rome,  or  crying  out  that 
I  could  not  find  it  or  that  it  had  been  destroyed.  I 
have  a  certain  tenderness  for  that  dour  old  gentle- 
man as  he  lives  in  my  memory.  He  might  have  been 
anything  he  liked  but  for  one  weakness,  which  has 
told  against  the  careers  of  many  other  gifted  men. 
I  need  not  specify  it. 

Sunday  schooling  I  had  none.  I  do  not  even  know 
whether  there  was  such  a  thing  in  existence  at  the 
time  in  that  locality.  But  I  had  to  learn  the  Shorter 
Catechism,  and  hated  it.  The  odd  result  is  that  I 
know  by  heart  the  two  contemporary  catechisms, 
which  still  divide  the  allegiance  of  the  religiously 
brought  up  youth  of  this  island,  the  Presbyterian  and 
the  Anglican.  The  former  I  had  to  acquire  little 
by  little  and  recite  to  my  grandfather;  the  latter  I 
learned  by  having  to  teach  it  years  afterwards  in  an 
Anglican  school.    But  there  was  this  similarity  be- 


EARLY  YEARS 


21 


tween  them,  that  both  laid  stress  on  the  Church  and 
the  sacraments;  and  one  cannot  but  regard  it  as  a 
serious  deprivation  that  so  many  of  the  children 
of  the  present  day  are  without  a  proper  understand- 
ing of  either.  No  other  kind  of  instruction  can  com- 
pensate for  the  lack.  It  would  be  no  exaggeration 
to  say  that  the  doctrine  of  the  Church  as  taught 
to  me  in  my  early  days  was  as  "high"  as  anything  I 
have  learned  since.  And  nothing  could  be  more 
solemn  and  authoritative  than  the  teaching  we  re- 
ceived in  regard  thereto.  Admission  to  the  Lord's 
table  was  a  very  serious  matter  even  for  communi- 
cants of  long  standing,  far  more  so  than  in  the  aver- 
age English  parish  church  at  the  present  time.  It 
was  fenced  round  by  restrictions  that  would  hardly 
be  considered  tolerable  in  England  at  all,  certainly 
not  by  Nonconformists.  Those  who  in  the  judg- 
ment of  minister  and  elders  were  spiritually  in  a 
right  condition  to  participate  were  given  metal 
"tokens,"  which  they  had  to  produce  before  being  al- 
lowed to  mingle  with  the  hushed  assembly  that  gath- 
ered round  the  sacred  board  on  the  day  set  apart  for 
communion.  Those  who  are  today  agitating  in  the 
Church  of  England  for  the  restoration  of  the  Lord's 
own  service,  as  it  is  rightly  called,  to  the  central 
position  in  public  worship  would  have  been  impressed 
by  what  took  place  in  our  house  of  prayer  on  sacra- 
ment Sabbath.  There  was  no  question  in  anyone's 
mind  as  to  the  priority  of  that  service  over  all  others. 
It  was  no  addendum,  no  mere  extra  tacked  on  to  or- 
dinary worship.    It  was  a  great  service  by  itself — 


22       A  SPIRITUAL  PILGRIMAGE 


the  great  service,  to  which  all  else  in  the  Church's 
life  was  subordinate.  It  was  the  chief  means  of  grace 
to  which  Christ's  people  could  look.  We  children 
were  allowed,  and  indeed  expected,  to  be  present  at 
it,  but  only  as  spectators.  It  was  a  useful  means 
of  preparing  us  for  the  supreme  privilege  which  was 
to  be  ours  by  and  by,  if  we  were  counted  worthy,  of 
being  initiated  into  the  fellowship  of  this  holy  mys- 
tery. 

Such  was  the  mental  environment  in  which  I  was 
reared,  and  such  the  principal  personalities  that  had 
the  shaping  of  my  early  life.  And  if  it  be  true  that 
a  child  learns  more  subconsciously  than  otherwise, 
my  debt  to  these  good  people  is  infinitely  greater 
than  is  here  stated.  I  lived  among  them  at  the  age 
of  vivid  and  lasting  impressions,  the  period  when  the 
general  set  of  a  character  is  made  for  good  or  ill. 
Intellectually  I  was  utterly  unformed,  and  my  experi- 
ence of  the  world  was  almost  nil.  But  I  am  con- 
vinced that  the  religious  bent  supplied  to  my  nature 
by  my  forbears,  and  confirmed  and  strengthened 
by  my  early  training  in  a  godly  home,  has  remained 
substantially  unchanged  through  all  my  after  years, 
and  is  much  the  same  today  as  it  was  in  my  child- 
hood. Of  supernormal  spiritual  experiences  I  shall 
not  speak,  save  to  say  that  I  have  had  them,  and  that 
they  account  for  some  of  the  so-called  pantheism  of 
my  pulpit  utterances  of  a  much  later  date.  There 
was  an  experience  behind  that  way  of  putting  things 
which  is  common,  I  think,  to  all  persons  with  any- 
thing approaching  a  mystical  temperament,  and  it 


EARLY  YEARS 


23 


has  its  dangers,  as  will  be  shown  in  the  proper  place. 
I  reverently  acknowledge  that  whatever  personal  re- 
ligion I  possess  is  due  to  no  merit  of  mine ;  it  was  born 
with  me,  so  to  speak.  It  would  be  absolutely  im- 
possible for  me  not  to  be  religious.  I  believe  I  have 
the  anima  naturaliter  Christiana.  To  be  spiritually 
minded  is  another  matter;  there  has  to  be  agony  and 
bloody  sweat  for  the  acquirement  of  many  of 
Heaven's  best  gifts.  But  at  least  one  may  humbly 
recognize  and  admit  that  the  religious  temperament 
is  not  universal,  is  itself  a  divine  endowment,  and  car- 
ries with  it  a  certain  spiritual  trusteeship.  It  is  an 
inchoate  vocation  which  sooner  or  later  becomes  ex- 
plicit, and  so  it  was  in  my  case.  One  may  speculate 
as  to  what  might  have  been  if  early  conditions  had 
been  different.  But  it  is  plain  that  being  what  they 
were  they  nourished  and  developed  what  was  an  in- 
nate disposition.  One  need  not,  perhaps,  have  become 
a  preacher,  but  it  was  practically  inevitable  that  one's 
feet  should  ever  be  drawn  to  the  courts  of  the  Lord's 
house. 


CHAPTER  II 

YOUTH  AND  EARLY  MANHOOD 

When  I  was  just  entering  my  teens  my  father 
intervened  to  put  an  end  to  the  idyll  of  my  exist- 
ence in  a  North  of  Ireland  country  home.  He  very 
wisely  and  firmly  insisted  that  I  should  come  to  Eng- 
land for  my  further  and  more  definite  education.  He 
had  made  several  tries  in  the  same  direction  before, 
but  was  always  defeated,  both  by  my  ill  health  and 
by  the  strong  representations  of  my  uncle  and  grand- 
parents, who  wished  to  keep  me  with  them.  Now, 
however,  he  got  his  way,  and  sorely  against  my  own 
will  I  was  transplanted  to  English  soil  and  made  an 
inmate  of  a  household  to  which  up  to  then  I  had 
been  practically  a  stranger.  And  I  felt  myself  a 
stranger  too.  It  is  seldom  a  good  thing,  I  should 
imagine,  for  a  child  to  be  brought  up  apart  from  his 
parents  and  brothers  and  sisters.  It  took  me  years 
to  get  used  to  them  or  to  feel  that  I  was  really  one 
of  them;  and  I  may  confess  that  it  was  not  until  I 
actually  grew  to  be  a  man  and  had  a  home  of  my 
own  that  I  fully  discovered  my  mother's  sweetness 
and  goodness  of  heart.  This  was  partly,  no  doubt, 
because  I  was  at  home  so  little  even  after  my  return 
to  my  father's  direct  supervision.   In  all  I  have  been 

24 


YOUTH  AND  EARLY  MANHOOD  25 


a  comparatively  short  time  beneath  my  father's  roof. 
But  it  was  partly  due  also  to  the  fact  that,  as  my 
mother  has  since  admitted,  she  herself  and  my 
father  almost  felt  for  a  time  as  if  I  were  an  entire 
newcomer  to  the  family  circle  and  only  half  their 
own.  Needless  to  say,  as  time  went  on  this  sense  of 
strangeness  wore  off,  and  a  peculiarly  happy  fellow- 
ship grew  up  which  continues  to  this  day  unimpaired. 
It  is  not  often,  one  may  venture  to  say,  that  families 
are  so  united  in  mature  life,  or  that  there  is  such  a 
perfect  understanding  between  its  various  members 
as  in  our  case.  We  are  very  clannish,  to  use  a  col- 
loquialism often  on  my  mother's  lips.  I  have  no  hesi- 
tation in  acknowledging  that  I  prefer  the  company 
of  my  brothers  at  any  time  to  that  of  other  men, 
though  I  have  close  and  valued  friendships  with  per- 
sons not  of  our  blood. 

In  view  of  the  special  purpose  with  which  this  nar- 
rative is  undertaken  there  is  no  need  to  dwell  upon  my 
schooldays.  As  far  as  I  can  judge  they  set  no  special 
mark  upon  me  spiritually,  a  statement  which  I  note 
is  often  made  of  public  schools  in  general  with  regard 
to  the  young  life  given  into  their  charge.  It  seems  a 
pity  that,  while  there  is  so  much  discussion  and  dis- 
putation respecting  the  religious  training  to  be  given 
to  the  children  of  the  poorer  classes  attending  the 
schools  which  come  upon  the  rates,  so  little  attention 
should  have  been  directed  up  to  the  present  to  the 
equally  important  question  of  the  nature  of  the  re- 
ligious instruction  supposed  to  be  imparted  in  schools 
of  a  superior  grade.  Ours  was  a  grammar  school,  and 


26       A  SPIRITUAL  PILGRIMAGE 


a  very  good  one  of  its  kind.  We  had  clergy  among 
the  masters,  but  I  cannot  recollect  a  scintilla  of  in- 
terest being  shown  in  the  spiritual  welfare  of  any  boy 
belonging  to  it.  True,  we  had  prayers  every  morn- 
ing, the  usual  modified  Prayer  Book  form;  and  what 
was  called  "divinity"  had  a  certain  place  in  the  ex- 
aminations ;  but  no  attempt  was  ever  made  to  suggest 
to  us  that  these  things  were  more  than  a  form ;  and  I 
am  sure  that  is  how  the  boys  felt  about  the  matter.  It 
never  entered  our  heads  that  our  religious  exercises 
had  any  special  importance.  I  now  passed  through  a 
pagan  period,  as  I  suppose  most  boys  do.  My  child- 
hood's experiences  sank  into  the  background;  I 
knew  better  than  to  talk  about  them.  My  associates 
were  healthy-minded  young  savages,  purely  secular  in 
speech  and  aim,  and  I  became  something  of  a  savage 
myself  accordingly.  The  dreamer  of  dreams  sank 
into  a  dreamless  sleep ;  only  the  adventurer  and  hed- 
onist remained  awake,  more  awake  than  heretofore. 
Health  continued  bad,  but  I  managed  to  do  pretty 
well  in  my  classes  notwithstanding,  and  finally  be- 
came a  student  teacher  with  no  salary.  This  led  on 
to  other  work  of  the  same  kind,  part  of  it  in  ele- 
mentary schools,  which  I  still  think  was  a  mistake; 
it  would  have  been  better  to  take  the  headmaster's 
advice  and  push  straight  on  for  the  university.  My 
father's  removal  from  one  circuit  to  another  prevented 
this,  as  also  no  doubt  his  large  family  and  compara- 
tively slender  means. 

At  length  I  was  appointed  junior  master  in  a  small 
high  school  in  Cheshire,  the  headmaster  of  which  was 


YOUTH  AND  EARLY  MANHOOD  27 


a  clergyman  and  Oxford  honorman.  This  event 
marked  an  epoch  in  my  adolescent  life,  for,  as  the 
whole  tone  of  the  school  was  Anglican,  and  I  had  to 
teach  the  Church  catechism  and  prepare  boys  for  the 
Oxford  and  Cambridge  local  examinations  in  divinity 
as  in  other  subjects,  it  was  considered  desirable  that 
I  should  be  confirmed  and  become  a  communicant  in 
the  ordinary  way.  I  did  so,  without,  I  am  afraid,  a 
really  adequate  knoweldge  of  how  much  was  involved 
therein.  But  I  took  the  step  wholeheartedly;  it  was 
my  own  choice.  I  loved  the  Church  atmosphere  and 
was  thoroughly  at  home  in  it.  I  was  confirmed  in 
Manchester  Cathedral  by  Bishop  Moorhouse,  and 
remained  in  the  communion  of  the  Church  of  Eng- 
land for  the  next  eight  years,  the  most  formative 
years  of  my  life,  as  will  be  seen,  for  they  include  my 
Oxford  career.  None  of  my  family  raised  any  objec- 
tion; in  fact  my  eldest  brother,  who  shortly  after- 
wards came  to  reside  in  the  neighborhood,  usually 
attended  church  with  me  on  Sundays,  though  he 
was  never  confirmed.  My  two  younger  brothers, 
however,  subsequently  followed  me  into  the  Church 
of  England  and  have  adhered  to  their  churchmanship 
from  that  day  to  this.  It  was  not  through  my  in- 
fluence that  they  took  this  course.  As  they  drew 
towards  man's  estate  they  became  dissatisfied  with 
Nonconformity,  feeling  it  did  not  meet  their  needs, 
and  when  they  were  free  to  act  on  their  own  initia- 
tive they  left  it  and  identified  themselves  with  Angli- 
canism, within  which  all  their  children  have  since  been 
brought  up.    My  example  may  have  had  a  little  to 


28       A  SPIRITUAL  PILGRIMAGE 


do  with  hastening  their  decision,  but  was  not  the  cause 
of  it.  The  cause  lies  deeper,  and  is  mainly  to  be 
sought  in  the  feeling  after  historical  continuity  and 
of  dignity  and  order  in  worship  which,  as  I  have 
already  hinted,  characterized  to  no  small  extent  the 
stock  from  which  we  came. 

Some  explanation  may  be  thought  necessary  as  to 
how  my  father  came  to  be  an  English  Nonconformist 
minister,  seeing  that  he  too,  like  my  mother's  people, 
was  of  Ulster  Presbyterian  origin.  It  simply  was 
that  he  refused  to  subscribe  to  the  Westminster  Con- 
fession, otherwise  he  would  inevitably  have  entered 
the  Presbyterian  ministry  and  probably  have  re- 
mained in  Ireland  all  his  days.  He  was  then  and  is 
now  of  liberal  tendencies  in  his  thinking,  and  dis- 
liked the  dominant  Calvinism  of  his  youth.  When 
the  time  came  for  him  to  make  choice  between  a  min- 
istry whose  doctrinal  basis  was  as  thus  specified  and 
some  other  career  he  finally  decided  against  the 
former,  and  after  some  years  of  academic  experience 
came  over  to  England  and  entered  the  ministry  of 
the  United  Methodist  Church.  He  did  this  because, 
as  he  very  rightly  says,  this  particular  body  is  the 
freest  and  most  comprehensive  in  spirit  of  any  evan- 
gelical denomination  with  a  closely  knit  polity.  It  is 
not  a  mere  federation  of  units,  but  an  organized 
whole.  Curiously  enough,  my  paternal  grandfather 
followed  almost  the  same  course.  He  too  objected 
to  the  Westminster  Confession,  and  ultimately  be- 
came a  Congregational  minister  and  died  in  that  com- 
munion.   Congregationalism  resembles  Free  Meth^ 


YOUTH  AND  EARLY  MANHOOD  29 


odism  so  closely  that  the  two  bodies  could,  I  think, 
easily  be  combined  with  advantage  to  both.  As  far 
as  organization  goes  it  is  the  former  that  would  be 
the  chief  gainer.  There  is  very  little  difference  other- 
wise, and  I  believe  I  am  not  mistaken  in  expressing 
the  opinion  that  the  United  Methodist  Church  could 
more  easily  assimilate  itself  to  Congregationalism 
than  to  the  Wesleyan  Church  out  of  which  it  sprang. 
Methodist  reunion  has  been  much  talked  of,  but  I 
doubt  if  it  will  ever  come  except  through  Noncon- 
formist union  in  general. 

To  the  best  of  my  recollection  I  only  once  saw 
my  father's  father.  He  died  while  still  in  his  prime, 
from  the  effects  of  a  fall  on  ice.  I  am  said  to  re- 
semble him  somewhat  in  appearance,  and  his  portrait 
certainly  suggests  it.  I  am  glad  to  possess  his  pulpit 
chair,  which  was  generously  sent  to  me  by  the  church 
to  which  he  formerly  ministered.  They  went  to  the 
trouble  of  having  a  brass  plate  affixed  to  it  with  an 
appropriate  inscription.  From  what  the  donors  told 
me,  it  was  evident  that  my  grandfather  was  greatly 
respected  among  them,  and  there  are  still  a  few  alive 
who  can  remember  him  personally.  It  is  noteworthy 
that  one  of  the  observations  smilingly  made  about 
him  was  that  he  never  ceased  to  be  a  Presbyterian. 
A  domiciliary  visit  from  him  was  a  serious  matter. 
He  had  notions  of  ministerial  authority,  which  he 
exercised  to  the  full.  The  children  of  the  households 
constituting  his  flock  were  always  put  through  their 
paces  when  he  came  to  see  them.  He  catechized  them 
thoroughly,  and  as  he  could  not  use  either  the  Presby- 


30       A  SPIRITUAL  PILGRIMAGE 


terian  model  on  which  he  himself  had  been  reared  or 
its  Anglican  equivalent  which  would  have  seemed  to 
him  rank  Popery,  he  practically  invented  one  of  his 
own.  The  children  had  to  know  their  Bible,  and  to 
the  Bible  he  added  a  definite  and  continuous  course  of 
instruction  in  the  fundamentals  of  Christian  doctrine. 
It  would  be  interesting  to  know  what  he  would  have 
thought  on  the  vexed  modern  question  of  the  giving 
of  religious  instruction  in  day  schools.  I  am  sure  the 
accepted  Nonconformist  policy  on  this  subject  would 
not  have  been  his.  I  hardly  think  the  accepted  Non- 
conformist policy  in  anything  would  have  met  with 
his  entire  approval.  So  far  as  he  touched  politics  at 
all  he  must  have  been  a  curious  mixture  of  innate 
Conservatism  with  a  Liberalism  born  of  slow  con- 
viction. 

The  same  with  modifications  may  be  said  of  my 
father,  and  his  sons  sometimes  poke  a  little  fun  at 
him  on  account  of  it.  He  calls  himself  a  Liberal,  and 
so  he  is  both  in  religion  and  politics,  but  Ulster  will 
peep  out  occasionally.  At  the  age  of  seventy-seven 
his  mind  is  as  active  as  ever  and  as  keenly  interested 
in  public  affairs.  One  thing  is  quite  certain:  he  has 
never  been  a  Methodist.  He  might  repudiate  this 
statement,  as  he  loves  the  denomination  to  which  he 
belongs,  and  which,  not  without  warrant,  he  holds 
to  be  the  best  model  for  Nonconformity  to  unite  upon. 
But  all  the  same,  both  in  temperament  and  general 
outlook,  he  is  still  a  staid,  sober  Presbyterian.  No 
doubt  his  brother  ministers  will  know  what  I  mean 
and  indorse  the  remark.    I  have  more  than  once 


YOUTH  AND  EARLY  MANHOOD  31 


heard  the  same  thing  slyly  affirmed  of  the  present 
Archbishop  of  Canterbury. 

This  perhaps  is  the  point  at  which  to  say  what  the 
principal  differences  were  between  the  Irish  Presby- 
terianism  in  which  I  had  been  brought  up  and  the 
English  Nonconformity  into  which  I  was  imported 
when  my  father  brought  me  home.   I  mean,  of  course, 
the  differences  which  impressed  me  without  my  being 
old  enough  to  understand  them  properly.    The  first 
was  that  the  "Church"  disappeared,  and  the  "Gospel" 
took  its  place.    I  hope  no  Nonconformist  will  feel 
aggrieved  by  this  statement.  In  my  early  days  many 
would  have  been  quite  satisfied  with  it  and  consid- 
ered it  a  credit  to  Nonconformity  rather  than  a  re- 
proach; they  would  have  said  that  the  Gospel  came 
first  and  the  Church  a  long  way  second ;  perhaps  most 
of  them  would  say  so  still.  But  while  I  did  not  know 
what  this  change  of  emphasis  meant  I  was  very  con- 
scious of  it.    I  could  not  but  realize  that  the  pulpit 
was  tuned  to  a  different  note  unless  when  my  father 
was  preaching.   Evangelization  was  the  thing  chiefly 
aimed  at,  and  that  of  a  particular  and  well-marked 
type.   Personal  relationship  to  Christ  constituted  the 
subject  matter  of  the  sermons,  being  born  again,  and 
progressing  individually  in  the  spiritual  life  till  the 
soul  attained  to  complete  sanctification.    We  were 
constantly  exhorted  to  come  to  Jesus,  to  make  our 
peace  with  God,  to  forsake  the  world,  and  so  on — all 
very  good  and  right  in  its  way,  but  not  what  I  had 
been  accustomed  to  hearing.   It  is  no  exaggeration  to 
say  that  the  very  idea  of  the  Church  seemed  almost 


32       A  SPIRITUAL  PILGRIMAGE 


superfluous.  Any  suggestion  of  the  necessity  of  being 
grafted  into  Christ's  mystical  body  by  baptism  or 
otherwise  was  wholly  absent.  To  be  converted,  to 
be  saved,  was  held  up  before  us  as  almost  the  sole 
objective  of  the  penitent  sinner,  that  is,  when  peni- 
tence could  be  induced  in  the  sinner  at  all.  It  re- 
pelled me,  though  I  did  not  quite  know  why,  and  I 
never  got  over  my  repugnance  to  it.  It  was  re- 
pugnance to  that  individualistic  gospel  of  salvation 
more  than  anything  else  which  led  to  the  utterances 
on  my  part  which  produced  the  controversy  of  ten 
years  ago.  In  that  controversy  I  definitely  broke 
with  evangelical  Nonconformity.  What  has  hap- 
pened since,  so  far  as  I  am  concerned,  is  not  a  return 
to  that,  but  to  the  idea  of  the  Church  as  the  Church, 
the  sphere  of  sacramental  grace,  the  home  of  the 
growing  soul,  our  Lord's  visible  witness  and  repre- 
sentative on  earth,  the  society  in  which  He  dwells  and 
which  His  Holy  Spirit  guides  and  inspires. 

The  next  difference  that  struck  me  forcibly,  di- 
rectly connected  with  the  foregoing,  was  the  status 
of  the  ministry.  In  the  Scotch-Irish  environment  I 
have  tried  briefly  to  describe,  the  minister's  office  was 
held  in  great  reverence,  and  not  least  because  he  had 
been  solemnly  ordained  and  set  apart  thereto  with  the 
laying-on  of  hands.  He  was  not  as  other  men.  He 
had  been  sealed  to  a  vocation  not  of  earth,  but  of 
Heaven.  Christ  had  chosen  and  anointed  him  with 
a  divine  charism  for  the  discharge  of  a  sacred  duty, 
the  highest  of  all  kinds  of  work  in  this  world,  that 
of  ministering  to  His  flock  in  holy  things.  This 


YOUTH  AND  EARLY  MANHOOD  33 


had  been  duly  recognized  by  the  minister's  brethren 
of  the  presbytery.  The  people  had  called  him  to 
the  particular  church  over  which  he  had  been  set,  but 
they  could  not  give  him  his  commission:  that  came 
from  God  alone. 

Some  years  ago  a  gentleman  in  clerical  dress  came 
into  my  vestry  at  the  City  Temple  after  a  Thursday 
morning  service,  and  began  thus:  "You  do  not  know 
me,  Mr.  Campbell,  but  I  knew  some  of  your  people 

a  long  time  ago,  and  ."    "Yes,  I  do  know  you 

quite  well,"  I  interrupted.  "Your  name  is  Jackson, 
and  I  saw  you  ordained  in  the  north  of  Ireland  over 
thirty  years  ago.  I  could  tell  you  the  names  of  some 
of  the  ministers  who  took  part  on  that  occasion,  and 
I  remember  nearly  every  detail  of  the  service."  He 
was  much  astonished,  and  I  make  no  doubt  has  since 
repeated  the  conversation  as  the  token  of  a  remark- 
able performance,  but  in  reality  it  was  nothing  of  the 
sort.  To  begin  with,  the  minister  in  question  was 
one  of  those  people  who  change  very  little  in  out- 
ward appearance  from  early  to  late  manhood;  and 
in  the  next  place  it  would  be  impossible  to  forget  the 
associations  of  an  event  which  had  impressed  my 
childish  mind  with  such  awe  as  that  ordination.  No 
one  could  help  feeling  that  it  represented  something 
very  holy,  the  bestowal  of  a  supernatural  gift  by  the 
hands  of  the  Lord  Himself.  And  that  was  the 
thought  that  ran  right  through  all  the  relations  of 
the  laity  with  the  ministry  at  that  time  and  place,  just 
as  it  runs  through  Scottish  Presbyterianism  in 
general. 


34 


A  SPIRITUAL  PILGRIMAGE 


But  English  Nonconformity  as  I  was  first  made 
acquainted  with  it,  and  as  I  have  known  it  since,  has 
little  or  none  of  that.  In  its  opposition  to  sacer- 
dotalism it  is  shy  of  recognizing  any  distinction  be- 
tween minister  and  layman.  In  many  churches  the 
minister  is  regarded  as  no  more  than  a  person  whom 
the  rest  of  the  members  of  a  certain  religious  com- 
munity choose  to  appoint  and  pay  to  do  what  they 
themselves  have  not  time  to  do,  namely,  look  after 
church  aff airs  and  see  that  they  are  properly  adminis- 
tered. He  is  to  make  the  church  go  as  they  make 
their  businesses  go.  To  this  end  he  must  be  a  good 
and  attractive  speaker,  but  there  is  nothing  sacro- 
sanct about  his  pulpit  gift  any  more  than  about  theirs 
for  securing  success  in  any  other  direction.  Again 
I  beg  Nonconformists  not  to  imagine  that  I  am 
speaking  slightingly  of  ' them  or  their  institutions.  I 
am  simply  saying  what  I  know  thousands  of  their 
own  number  would  acknowledge  to  be  true,  and  many 
Mould  think  desirable  likewise.  They  would  view 
with  suspicion  any  tendency  on  the  part  of  the  min- 
ister to  magnify  his  office  or  attribute  special  sig- 
nificance to  it.  As  a  rule  there  is  no  laying-on  of 
hands  when  he  enters  upon  it — not  that  the  omission 
matters  much,  for  no  Nonconformist  would  believe 
in  the  conveyance  of  spiritual  gifts  by  a  merely  me- 
chanical act,  or  would  be  at  all  inclined  to  admit  the 
value  of  historical  succession  in  this  method  of  con- 
ferring Holy  Orders.  But  the  inevitable  result  is 
seen  in  the  standing  and  authority  of  the  minister. 
If  he  is  a  strong  man,  the  possessor  of  popular  gifts, 


YOUTH  AND  EARLY  MANHOOD  35 


he  will  be  treated  with  plenty  of  consideration;  but 
the  consideration  is  not  due  to  his  office  so  much  as  to 
his  personal  qualities.  And  more  and  more  it  is  the 
tendency  to  make  the  minister  directly  responsible  for 
all  the  detail  of  the  activities  of  the  church  he  serves. 
He  must  attend  to  everything  and  do  his  best  to 
please  everybody.  What  money  is  wanted  he  must 
raise;  what  special  efforts  are  made  for  any  purpose 
he  must  stimulate  and  organize.  I  am  free  to  say 
this,  for  in  both  the  churches  to  which  I  ministered 
while  in  Nonconformity  I  was  specially  shielded  from 
this  kind  of  thing  and  thereby  enabled  to  devote  my- 
self mainly  to  the  pulpit.  I  have  not,  and  never 
can  have,  any  but  the  kindest  and  most  grateful  mem- 
ories of  the  treatment  I  received  from  the  office- 
bearers and  congregations  with  which  I  have  been 
associated  in  Brighton  and  London  respectively.  In 
writing  as  above  of  the  status  of  the  ministry  I  am 
speaking  for  others  than  myself,  and  I  know  that 
what  I  say  would  be  confirmed  by  Nonconformist 
ministers  in  general.  The  tendency  to  regard  the 
minister  as  the  salaried  director  of  an  institution 
which  has  to  be  made  as  successful  as  possible  is 
widely  recognized  as  a  pernicious  one,  but  is  not  the 
reason  for  it  to  be  sought  in  the  popularly  accepted 
theory  of  the  nature  of  the  ministerial  office?  It 
would  absolutely  astonish  many  Nonconformists  to 
hear  their  minister  speak  of  his  Orders  at  all.  Where 
is  the  use  of  arguing  about  the  validity  of  Noncon- 
formist Orders  under  such  circumstances?  The  first 
thing  to  be  done  is  to  convince  the  laity  that  Orders 


36       A  SPIRITUAL  PILGRIMAGE 


exist  and  to  show  what  they  mean.  Let  me  not  be 
misunderstood.  It  need  hardly  be  said  that  the  rela- 
tion between  minister  and  people  in  a  Nonconformist 
church  is  at  its  best  one  of  peculiar  closeness  and 
beauty,  full  of  tenderness  and  mutual  devotion.  I 
know  more  than  one  such  and  do  not  expect  to  meet 
with  anything  better  of  the  kind  in  corporate  religion 
on  this  side  of  the  grave.  But  wherever  it  is  found 
it  will  be  observed  that  reverence  for  the  character  of 
the  man  in  the  pulpit  and  gratitude  for  the  spiritual 
help  afforded  by  his  preaching,  or  love  for  the  wise 
and  tireless  pastor  whom  they  know  in  the  home,  is 
the  cause  of  the  feeling  on  the  part  of  the  people  and 
lifts  the  whole  subject  to  a  level  on  which  all  that 
could  reasonably  be  claimed  for  the  office  at  its  high- 
est is  spontaneously  recognized  as  true  of  the  man. 
Perhaps  some  would  contend  that  this  is  all  that  is 
needed.  That  is  not  so.  It  depends  too  much  upon 
what  may  be  termed  the  accidents  of  the  situa- 
tion— the  right  man  in  the  right  place,  and  a  congre- 
gation wise  enough  and  good  enough  to  know  it  and 
value  him  accordingly.  It  might  be  tragically  other- 
wise. What  is  lacking  is  in  most  cases  the  proper 
standpoint  from  which  to  view  the  ministry  as  a 
whole.  Either  it  is  of  divine  authority  or  it  is  noth- 
ing; and  if  it  is  of  divine  authority,  however  that 
authority  be  construed,  surely  the  fact  ought  to  be 
solemnly  admitted  and  definitely  marked.  The  dis- 
tinction between  minister  and  layman  is  no  imagi- 
nary one,  and  it  is  a  grave  evil  when  it  is  treated  as 
such.  If  sacerdotalism  is  a  danger,  so  is  anti-sacerdot- 


YOUTH  AND  EARLY  MANHOOD  37 


alism  in  some  of  its  developments,  and  this  is  one. 

But  I  must  not  labor  the  point.  All  I  am  con- 
cerned to  show  here  is  that  one  of  the  first  things  I 
noticed  on  coming  to  England  was  the  difference  in 
the  position  of  the  ministry,  as  I  had  hitherto  been 
taught  to  look  upon  it,  from  that  accorded  to  it  in 
English  Nonconformity.  It  was  a  difference  second 
only  to  that  already  mentioned.1 

A  third  difference,  as  obvious  as  either  of  the  oth- 
ers, was  that  of  the  political  atmosphere.  Ulster  was 
and  is  a  hotbed  of  Toryism  of  a  particularly  unyield- 
ing kind — sui  generis,  in  fact.  Now  I  was  plunged 
into  the  midst  of  an  equally  fervid  Radicalism.  It 
turned  things  topsy-turvy  for  me,  and  it  was  a  long 
time  before  I  could  adjust  my  vision  to  the  new  per- 
spective. To  this  day  that  same  difference  makes 
active  intercourse  between  north  of  Ireland  Protes- 
tantism and  English  Nonconformity  exceedingly  dif- 
ficult; it  cuts  across  everything.  Nonconformity  in 
England  is  earnestly  political,  especially  in  its  in- 
terdenominational organizations,  but  its  battle-cries 
are  almost  the  opposite  of  those  of  Ulster  Orange- 
men. On  every  Nonconformist  platform  for  the 
last  twenty  years  I  have  been  accustomed  to  hearing 

1  Of  course  it  should  not  be  overlooked  that  in  theory  the  min- 
ister's office  is  a  spiritual  one,  and  the  call  thereto  as  sacred  as 
anything  ever  claimed  for  Anglican  or  Roman  priesthood.  I  am 
only  arguing  that  the  fact  should  be  more  definitely  recognized. 
Nor  does  the  above  apply  to  English  Presbyterianism,  of  which 
I  know  nothing  at  first  hand.  Wesleyan  ministers  might  perhaps 
claim  to  possess  presbyteral  succession  by  the  laying-on  of  hands, 
but  I  have  never  heard  of  their  doing  so. 


38        A  SPIRITUAL  PILGRIMAGE 


Liberal  leaders  and  Liberal  measures  wildly  cheered. 
Mr.  Gladstone  was  idolized  by  Nonconformists,  High 
Churchman  though  he  was,  and  they  were  his  chief 
supporters.  Nonconformity  is  indeed  the  backbone 
of  Liberalism,  and  it  would  be  difficult  to  overesti- 
mate its  influence  in  the  shaping  of  Liberal  programs 
as  long  as  I  have  known  it.  It  has  been  and  is  the 
inveterate  enemy  of  caste  privilege  and  petty  tyranny 
in  any  and  every  form.  Its  own  history  has  made 
it  so,  and  it  cannot  be  too  often  repeated  that  free 
institutions  throughout  the  world  owe  more  to  Eng- 
lish Nonconformity  than  we  can  readily  compute. 
To  be  just  it  must  be  questioned  whether  this  is  really 
due  to  the  genius  of  the  Puritanism  from  which  it 
inherits  or  to  other  causes.  I  think  the  latter  prin- 
cipally. Puritanism  was  never  disposed  to  be  tolerant 
to  what  it  disapproved,  and  if  it  had  gained  the  upper 
hand  in  this  country  permanently  it  would  probably 
not  have  developed  politically  in  quite  the  same  direc- 
tion as  modern  Nonconformity  at  large.  This  is 
proved,  I  think,  by  what  Ulster  Protestantism  has 
done.  In  Ulster  Presbyterianism  enjoys  more  con- 
sideration than  either  the  Episcopal  Church  of  Ire- 
land or  Roman  Catholicism.  It  has  been  in  a  privi- 
leged position  all  along  and  able  to  dictate  terms. 
The  Roman  Catholics  have  been  the  under  dog  and 
have  been  made  to  feel  it.  English  Nonconformists 
do  not  reckon  with  this  when  recounting  their  own 
battles  for  freedom  in  the  past.  It  is  quite  true 
they  have  had  them  to  fight,  equally  true  that 
their  struggles  have  been  long  and  stern  and  bitter, 


YOUTH  AND  EARLY  MANHOOD  39 


and  that  even  now  social  pressure  is  largely  against 
them.  But  that  is  not  the  story  of  the  race  to  which 
I  belong ;  indeed  it  is  almost  the  other  way  round.  It 
was  my  pious  forefathers  who  did  the  tyrannizing, 
and  their  ecclesiastical  rivals  who  did  the  suffering. 
Nothing  could  be  more  eloquent  of  the  distinction  in 
outlook  between  the  two  sets  of  people  today.  It 
accounts  for  nearly  everything  in  which  they  diverge 
from  each  other. 

But  at  the  same  time  let  me  willingly  and  grate- 
fully admit  here  that  I  believe  I  owe  a  great  debt  to 
Nonconformity  on  the  political  and  social  side  of 
things,  principally  after  I  entered  its  ministry  and  be- 
came associated  with  its  ideals.  I  shall  always  be 
thankful  to  have  known  these  from  the  inside.  Had  I 
remained  in  the  north  of  Ireland,  or  perhaps  even  had 
I  gone  straight  into  the  Anglican  ministry  after 
leaving  Oxford,  I  must  have  had  a  different  outlook 
upon  political  and  social  problems  and  a  different 
spirit  in  meeting  them.  I  make  this  remark  with 
caution.  My  friend  James  Adderley,  who  has 
breathed  a  distinctively  Church  atmosphere  all  his 
life,  and  been  brought  up  within  the  pale  of  social 
privilege  too,  has  not  found  these  facts  to  be  a  hin- 
drance to  his  understanding  of  or  sympathy  with  the 
lot  of  the  poor,  rather  the  contrary.  Perhaps  my  ex- 
perience would  have  been  the  same,  but  I  doubt  it. 
I  am  far  more  of  a  Conservative  by  temperament 
than  he,  and  unless  I  had  come  under  the  influence  of 
Nonconformity  I  do  not  see  how  I  could  have  escaped 
being  more  or  less  of  an  obscurantist  in  regard  to 


40       A  SPIRITUAL  PILGRIMAGE 


public  questions  and  social  reforms.  Who  knows,  I 
might  have  been  one  of  Sir  Edward  Carson's  lieu- 
tenants had  I  developed  normally!  He  will  never 
know  what  he  has  lost.  But,  to  speak  quite  seriously, 
I  have  to  confess,  as  I  think  many  Nonconformists 
are  already  aware,  that  it  was  no  easy  process  by 
which  I  came  gradually  to  adopt  their  views  in  such 
matters.  They  ran  counter  to  my  instincts,  or  rather 
to  the  obstinate  prejudices  of  the  preceptors  of  my 
youth,  who  held  a  revered  place  in  my  memory.  Does 
anyone  ever  quite  shake  off  the  effects  of  early  train- 
ing even  in  things  to  which  his  mature  judgment  is 
opposed? 

Let  me,  then,  acknowledge  the  obligation  under 
which  I  lie  in  this  respect  to  English  Nonconformists. 
They  gave  me  a  truer  view  of  history  and  of  the 
stern  realities  of  modern  life.  Whatever  of  demo- 
cratic principle  there  is  in  me  today  they  instilled.  If 
their  political  fervor  erred  on  the  side  of  individual- 
ism, and  was  slow  in  recognizing  the  new  moral  issues 
created  by  the  struggles  of  capital  and  labor,  that 
was  almost  inevitable.  And  a  similar  accusation 
could  be  brought  against  the  Established  Church  and 
with  even  greater  force,  namely,  that  it  has  been  the 
instrument  of  social  snobbery.  If  individualism  has 
been  more  pronounced  in  Nonconformity,  class  con- 
sciousness has  been  more  developed  in  the  Establish- 
ment. Later  on  I  came  to  see  this  in  both  cases,  but 
the  story  of  how  I  was  brought  in  touch  with  the 
Labor  movement  of  our  time  will  be  told  in  its  proper 
place.   As  it  is,  I  have  anticipated  a  little. 


CHAPTER  III 


THE  UNIVERSITY 

In  due  course  I  went  up  to  Oxford,  though  some- 
what later  than  most  undergraduates,  and  entered  at 
Christ  Church.  To  speak  quite  accurately,  I  went  up 
in  the  January  previous  to  the  Michaelmas  term  in 
which  I  matriculated,  and  spent  the  interval  in  doing 
tutorial  work  and  acquainting  myself  with  Oxford 
conditions  and  personages.  I  took  Responsions  in 
June.  As  a  matter  of  fact,  I  had  passed  pupils 
through  this  examination  long  before  submitting  to  it 
myself.  That  seems  to  have  been  more  or  less  my 
lot  in  life.  I  have  helped  men  to  prepare  for  Holy 
Orders  who  have  now  been  ordained  for  many  a 
long  year  and  are,  strictly  speaking,  my  seniors  in 
the  priesthood.  The  reason  of  my  becoming  asso- 
ciated with  Christ  Church  was  that  I  sat  for  a  history 
scholarship  there  in  the  summer  term,  and  although  I 
did  not  get  it,  being  over  the  usual  age,  the  Dean  very 
kindly  wrote  to  tell  me  that  if  I  was  prepared  to  read 
for  honors  they  would  be  glad  to  admit  me  on  the 
strength  of  my  papers.  I  went  to  see  him,  and  forged 
another  link  with  fate.  No  man  has  done  more  for 
me  than  Dean  (afterwards  Bishop)  Paget,  and  few, 
if  any,  have  I  ever  loved  more  deeply.    He  was  a 

41 


42        A  SPIRITUAL  PILGRIMAGE 


spiritual  father  to  me,  and  the  wisest  and  kindest  of 
friends.  Acting  on  his  recommendation,  I  came  into 
residence  at  the  House,  and  it  has  always  been  a 
source  of  satisfaction  to  me  to  belong  to  that  proud 
foundation.  If  I  had  my  time  at  Oxford  over  again 
it  is  to  Christ  Church  that  I  would  choose  to  go.  My 
three  years  there  were  very  fruitful  and  have  exer- 
cised no  small  influence  upon  my  subsequent  develop- 
ment. 

I  never  took  a  very  active  part  in  the  life  of  the 
College.  I  had  no  skill  in  sport — was  never  well 
enough  to  attempt  it — and  being  then,  as  always, 
shy  and  retiring  in  disposition,  I  kept  to  a  compara- 
tively small  circle  in  that  body  of  sportsmen.  How 
in  the  name  of  all  that  is  reasonable  I  ever  became 
a  public  speaker  Heaven  only  knows,  for  no  man 
was  ever  less  fitted  by  temperament  for  a  public 
career,  and  this  disability  has  caused  me  untold 
agonies  in  times  past.  To  this  day  it  is  with  much 
nervous  tension  that  I  ever  bring  myself  to  face  a 
fresh  assembly,  though  I  can  do  it  far  better  from  a 
pulpit  than  in  any  other  way.  Through  the  same 
drawback  I  never  joined  the  Union,  an  omission  I 
have  greatly  regretted  ever  since,  but  as  time  went 
on  I  became  a  member  of  several  excellent  private 
clubs  or  discussion  societies,  and  finally  president  of 
one  which  went  on  for  about  two  years  and  was  dis- 
solved only  after  the  founders  left  Oxford.  All  those 
composing  it  except  myself  were  members  of  the 
Union,  including,  I  think,  two  presidents  thereof,  and 
we  used  to  chaff  some  of  the  number  occasionally 


THE  UNIVERSITY 


43 


about  coming  to  us  for  the  fireworks  they  intended 
to  let  off  before  the  larger  audience. 

One  of  the  pleasantest  things  to  me  to  look  back 
upon  is  the  weekly  gathering  of  this  last-named 
society.  It  was  intercollegiate,  though  members  of 
Christ  Church  predominated,  if  I  remember  rightly. 
There  were  about  thirty  of  us  altogether,  and  there 
was  always  a  good  muster  on  Saturday  nights.  We 
usually  dined  in  company,  and  at  this  function  it  was 
the  custom  to  entertain  a  specially  invited  guest  who 
was  afterwards  expected  to  discourse  to  us  and  be 
flayed  alive  by  his  graceless  hearers  when  he  finished. 
But  we  were  the  j oiliest  set  imaginable.  There  was 
no  bickering  or  bad  temper,  and  beyond  all  question 
the  meetings  were  intellectually  stimulating,  even  if 
the  opinions  expressed  were  rather  crude  and  to  be 
laughed  at  from  the  standpoint  of  the  wider  experi- 
ence we  have  since  acquired  in  the  university  of  the 
world.  I  have  lost  sight  of  the  majority  of  the  men 
composing  that  circle.  Some  are  dead;  some  have 
gone  abroad ;  but  some,  I  am  glad  to  say,  still  remain 
my  attached  and  valued  friends  in  the  Church  and 
out  of  it.  Time  produces  strange  whirligig  effects 
in  human  life.  It  would  be  interesting  to  trace  the 
record  of  all  those  men  individually,  and  see  how  some 
have  falsified  the  expectations  entertained  by  their 
fellows  then,  and  how  surprisingly  others  have  shot 
beyond  what  was  ever  prophesied  of  them.  Inciden- 
tally it  may  be  remarked  that  none  of  them  ever 
thought  of  me  as  likely  to  become  a  preacher.  Aca- 
demic work  seemed  to  be  my  destiny,  even  if  ordained. 


44       A  SPIRITUAL  PILGRIMAGE 


But  this  is  only  incidental  to  my  subject,  and  must 
not  be  dwelt  upon  further.  I  daresay  our  society  was 
no  more  remarkable  than  others  of  its  kind  in  Oxford 
at  the  time.  There  were  plenty  of  them,  as  there  still 
are.  They  have  always  been  a  feature  of  university 
life,  and  little  that  is  unique  could  be  said  about  any 
of  them.  One  thing  only  I  may  mention  in  con- 
nection with  this  one  as  bearing  upon  my  own  future. 
The  late  Principal  Fairbairn  of  Mansfield  College 
was  our  guest  on  one  occasion,  and  when  later  the 
question  arose  as  to  whether  I  ought  to  accept  the 
invitation  which  was  sent  to  me  to  enter  the  Congre- 
gational ministry,  he  observed  very  emphatically: 
"If  ever jiny  man  had  his  vocation  marked  out  for  him 
surely  you  have  yours.  I  saw  that  plainly  enough 
the  night  I  visited  your  club  at  Christ  Church.  You 
will  have  considerable  influence  with  young  men. 
Recognize  that,  and  stay  on  in  Oxford.  Attached  to 
the  University  in  some  capacity  you  could  do  a  much- 
needed  work  for  the  spiritual  welfare  of  undergrad- 
uates." I  have  sometimes  felt  sorry  that  I  did  not 
take  his  advice. 

It  is  unnecessary  to  discuss  at  length  the  various 
Oxford  men  of  mark  with  whom  I  was  brought  into 
contact  during  my  period  of  residence.  The  great 
Benjamin  Jowett  of  Balliol  I  only  saw  once.  He 
died,  I  think,  in  1893.  The  Oxford  of  my  time  was 
full  of  good  stories  about  him,  many  of  them,  no 
doubt,  imaginary.  His  was  the  most  conspicuous 
figure  in  the  University,  but  did  not  dominate  every- 
thing.   The  tide  of  living  interest,  especially  in  re- 


THE  UNIVERSITY 


45 


ligious  matters,  was  flowing  another  way.  The  Lux 
Mundi  school  had  come  to  the  fore,  and  it  is  not  too 
much  to  say  that  everything  fresh  and  earnest  in 
theological  study  and  spiritual  life  either  centered 
round  it  or  borrowed  vitality  from  it.  This  is  true 
even  of  the  circles  most  opposed  to  it.  Nobody 
could  let  it  alone;  it  could  not  be  ignored  or  neg- 
lected in  any  University  set.  It  provoked  endless 
argument  and  a  good  deal  of  antagonism,  but  never 
of  the  bitter  and  contemptuous  sort  that  we  read  of 
in  connection  with  the  Tractarian  movement  of  which 
it  was  the  lineal  successor — with  wide  differences,  of 
course.  It  may  be  questioned  whether  Tractarianism 
ever  exercised  a  greater  influence  in  Oxford  than  the 
Lux  Mundi  men.  They  laid  hold  of  the  best  youth 
of  the  University  with  enormous  results  to  the  quality 
of  their  churchmanship.  Pusey  House,  with  Charles 
Gore  at  its  head,  was  doing  an  immense  work  in  a 
quiet  way  in  familiarizing  successive  generations  of 
graduates  and  undergraduates  with  the  Anglo-Cath- 
olic standpoint  and  discipline,  and  equally  so  in  stimu- 
lating an  interest  in  the  proper  Christian  solution  of 
social  problems.  It  is  not  too  much  to  say  that  it  led 
the  way  in  the  latter,  and  has  gone  far  to  make  possi- 
ble the  now  general  awakening  of  the  Christian  con- 
sciousness on  the  subject,  so  far  as  our  own  country  is 
concerned.  This  is  not  generally  recognized,  but  I  am 
sure  it  is  true.  Dr.  Gore's  personal  influence  was  very 
great.  He  was  the  most  talked  of  man  in  Oxford, 
and  large  numbers  of  graduates  and  undergraduates 
looked  to  him  as  to  a  master.   Earnest  evangelicals 


m       A  SPIRITUAL  PILGRIMAGE 


feared  him,  as  did  old-fashioned  High  Churchmen. 
They  scarcely  knew  what  to  make  of  him.  His  union 
of  liberal  views  on  Biblical  criticism  with  a  definitely 
Catholic  theology  were  a  complete  puzzle  to  many 
people.  His  profound  erudition,  force  of  character, 
and  well-known  preference  for  the  religious  life — I 
mean,  of  course,  in  the  ecclesiastical  sense,  for  the 
cloister  rather  than  the  world — gave  him  a  tremen- 
dous grip  upon  the  choice  spirits  who  then,  as  at  all 
times,  were  looking  for  and  prepared  to  follow  any 
example  that  seemed  to  them  to  promise  emancipation 
from  worldly  or  trifling  views  of  the  present  and  its 
opportunities.  The  Community  of  the  Resurrection 
had  just  been  founded  at  Radley,  and  he  was  its  first 
superior.  The  Cowley  Fathers,  as  they  are  popularly 
known,  had  come  into  existence  earlier,  but  were  still 
new  enough  to  be  regarded  with  suspicion  and  ridicule 
as  they  appeared  in  the  streets  in  their  monastic  dress. 
In  their  ideals  and  practice  they  diverged  somewhat 
from  Dr.  Gore's  immediate  followers,  but  their  spirit 
and  purpose  were,  on  the  whole,  the  same.  Would 
it  be  misstating  it  to  say  that  it  was  to  recall  the 
Church  of  England  and  the  English  nation  to  a  true 
knowledge  of  their  Catholic  inheritance?  With  won- 
derful energy  and  self-sacrifice,  as  well  as  consecrated 
zeal  and  devotion,  they  carried  on  their  work.  Then, 
as  now,  they  were  a  very  remarkable  body  of  men, 
highly  gifted  and  cultured,  and  beyond  all  question 
animated  by  a  profound  sense  of  divine  vocation.  I 
saw  a  good  deal  of  them  from  first  to  last,  and  have 
ever  regarded  them  with  deep  respect. 


THE  UNIVERSITY 


47 


Into  this  religious  atmosphere  I  was  introduced 
at  Christ  Church.  It  was  entirely  new  to  me,  and 
at  first  somewhat  bewildering.  My  previous  expe- 
rience had  not  prepared  me  for  it.  The  type  of 
churchmanship  to  which  I  had  been  accustomed  in 
the  few  years  preceding  was  of  another  complexion. 
It  was  not  evangelical;  that  would  be  to  misdescribe 
it.  Neither  could  it  deserve  to  be  called  Broad 
Church,  unless  a  certain  easy-going  all-round  toler- 
ance could  be  so  designated,  which  most  Broad 
Churchmen  would  repudiate.  It  was  a  dignified  kind 
of  piety,  not  at  all  exacting,  and  much  more  intent 
upon  custom  and  order  than  upon  the  fervent  prac- 
tice of  one's  religion.  I  had  been  contented  with  it. 
It  stood  to  me  for  the  Church  of  England  as  a  whole, 
and  it  was  with  a  considerable  amount  of  surprise 
that  I  now  learned  that  this  could  no  longer  be.  Like 
everybody  else  I  had  heard  and  read  a  good  deal 
about  Tractarianism,  but  supposed  it  to  be  discredited 
and  driven  from  the  field.  I  now  discovered  it  to  be 
very  much  otherwise,  to  be,  in  fact,  the  most  vigorous 
element  in  our  University  life ;  or,  rather,  that  devel- 
opment of  it  represented  by  the  Lux  Mundi  school 
was  now  in  possession,  and  apparently  claiming  to  be 
the  norm  and  standard  of  what  all  churchmanship 
ought  to  be.  Most  of  my  friends  belonged  to  it.  The 
set  into  which  I  was  drawn  consisted  very  largely  of 
men  who  were  in  active  sympathy  with  it  and  looked 
to  Dr.  Gore  as  their  teacher  and  chief  exponent. 
Dean  Paget  himself  was  one  of  the  essayists  of  Lux 
Mundi,  and  the  one  to  whom  had  been  allotted  the 


48       A  SPIRITUAL  PILGRIMAGE 


crucial  subject  of  the  sacraments.  It  took  me  some 
little  time  to  get  my  bearings,  but  I  may  confess  that 
from  the  first  Lux  Mundi  churchmanship,  if  I  may 
be  permitted  that  not  very  satisfactory  expression, 
cast  a  spell  upon  me.  Spiritually  I  owe  nearly  every- 
thing to  it  in  my  mature  life.  Nonconformists  will 
forgive  me  for  saying  that  no  one  of  their  number 
has  ever  touched  me  at  all  from  first  to  last,  and  I 
am  not  conscious  of  owing  anything  of  my  religious 
life  to  Nonconformist  influences,  unless  one  is  to 
count  Ulster,  which,  as  I  have  already  shown,  can 
hardly  be  cited  in  this  connection.  The  two  sources 
of  my  spiritual  life  are  the  Ulster  Presbyterianism  of 
my  childhood,  and  the  Anglo-Catholicism  of  my  Ox- 
ford days.  To  the  latter,  humanly  speaking,  I  owe 
my  soul.  In  evangelical  phrase,  I  was  born  again 
within  it — and  this  apart  altogether  from  purely  theo- 
logical considerations.  I  passed  through  the  greatest 
spiritual  crisis  of  my  career  at  Oxford,  and  under- 
went an  awakening  then  which  changed  my  whole 
future  course.  I  went  up  with  the  idea  of  taking 
Holy  Orders,  it  is  true,  but  not  with  the  intention  of 
abandoning  academic  life  thereupon;  I  expected  to 
continue  teaching,  but  to  add  a  certain  amount  of 
clerical  work  to  my  professional  duties  after  the 
fashion  of  the  headmaster  under  whom  I  had  been 
serving.  This  was  all;  I  never  thought  of  anything 
more.  It  was  not  that  I  was  irreligious,  but  that  I 
was  spiritually  dormant.  Practically  my  whole  inter- 
est was  on  the  academic  side  of  things,  and  scarcely 
at  all  upon  the  ecclesiastical.   Now  all  was  changed. 


THE  UNIVERSITY 


49 


Religion  was  put  first,  and  academic  pursuits 
and  ambitions  relegated  to  an  entirely  subordinate 
place. 

It  will  readily  be  understood  that  this  did  not  come 
to  pass  without  a  struggle.  For  some  months,  indeed 
for  the  greater  part  of  my  first  year,  I  was  in  a  state 
of  upheaval  and  frequent  depression.  I  had  to  estab- 
lish a  new  relationship  with  God,  and  readjust  my 
life  if  I  could  in  accordance  with  His  will,  and  it  was 
not  easily  done.  It  would  be  hard  to  say  why  I 
entered  upon  it  at  all.  No  one,  I  think,  can  ever 
satisfactorily  explain  the  workings  of  the  Holy  Spirit 
in  his  own  heart  and  mind.  I  am  conscious  of  being 
unable  to  do  it  now,  nor  have  I  ever  attempted  it 
previously.  Suffice  it  to  say  that  soon  after  coming  to 
Oxford,  and  for  long  afterwards,  I  continued  in  a 
peculiarly  emotional  condition,  subject  to  the  strang- 
est alternations  of  joy  and  gloom,  now  exalted,  now 
despondent,  but  always  at  grips  with  eternal  reality. 
I  was  in  great  trouble  of  mind  part  of  the  time,  for 
I  saw  clearly  that  I  had  got  to  find  a  working  faith 
somehow  and  did  not  know  how  to  do  it.  No  one 
knows  better  than  I  the  inwardness  of  the  experience 
so  often  described  to  me  since  by  penitents,  that  of 
crying  to  God  for  light  and  apparently  receiving  no 
answer.  All  I  knew  was  that  I  was  determined  to 
find  God  if  He  were  to  be  found.  Now  I  know  I 
had  never  lost  Him,  but  I  did  not  know  it  then. 
What  I  was  acquiring  was  a  more  definite  personal 
religion  accompanied  by  the  consecration  of  my  whole 
being  to  the  service  of  my  Maker.    In  a  word,  I 


50       A  SPIRITUAL  PILGRIMAGE 


suppose  I  was  being  converted,  but  that  is  not  the 
word  I  should  have  used  to  describe  it,  nor  was  I  con- 
scious of  any  such  thing.  Neither  my  previous 
churchmanship,  nor  my  ephemeral  acquaintance  with 
English  Nonconformity  in  my  father's  home  years 
before,  had  really  anything  to  do  with  it.  In  regard 
to  the  deepest  things  I  was  comparatively  unaffected 
by  both. 

As  aforesaid,  the  change  in  outlook  was  due  to  my 
new  acquaintance  with  Oxford  Anglo- Catholicism 
more  than  to  any  other  single  influence.  This  at- 
tracted me  very  powerfully  on  the  spiritual  side,  more 
than  on  the  intellectual.  There  was  a  depth  and  real- 
ity in  it  I  had  not  found  elsewhere  since  my  child- 
hood's days.  The  men  who  represented  it  amongst 
my  daily  associates  were  men  in  whom  the  note  of 
holiness  was  very  strongly  marked.  There  was  a 
simplicity  and  directness  about  them,  an  absence  of 
all  aff ectation  and  unctuousness,  a  profound  humility 
and  reverence  in  regard  to  the  holy  mysteries  of  the 
faith,  which  were  to  me  irresistibly  attractive,  espe- 
cially as  they  were  so  generally  conjoined  to  wide 
culture  and  human  sympathies.  I  loved  the  atmos- 
phere of  sacramentalism,  if  I  may  so  put  it,  and  the 
constant  suggestion  of  the  supernatural  which  it  con- 
veyed. I  felt  the  nearness  of  God  and  Heaven  as 
never  heretofore  in  my  adult  years.  One  of  the  great- 
est spiritual  helps  I  received  was  the  privilege  of 
worshiping  with  the  Cowley  Fathers  in  their  little 
chapel,  since  replaced  by  an  ornate  church.  I  used 
to  go  frequently  to  Compline  there,  and  was  always 


THE  UNIVERSITY 


51 


made  welcome.  Occasionally  I  was  a  guest  at  their 
Sunday  midday  meal,  sitting  on  the  right  of  Father 
Page.  The  saintly  Father  Congreve  was  always  very 
sweet  to  me;  and  it  is  a  joy  to  know  that  he  still  lives 
to  bless  his  brethren  with  the  fragrance  of  his  spirit. 
I  thought  of  making  him  my  confessor,  and  ap- 
proached him  with  that  view;  but  somehow,  I  do  not 
remember  why,  I  finally  chose  one  of  the  clergy  of 
Cowley  St.  John  instead.  But  Dean  Paget,  who 
never  officially  acted  in  this  capacity  or  would  have 
been  likely  to  do  so  as  long  as  I  remained  in  statu 
pupillari,  was  of  more  use  to  me  than  anybody  during 
this  period  of  uncertainty  and  mental  strain.  I  was 
shy  of  intruding  on  him,  but  nothing  was  ever  too 
much  trouble  for  his  gracious,  gentle,  dignified  modes 
of  dealing  with  my  anxious  soul.  Much  that  he  did 
for  me  he  never  knew.  His  character  was  a  benedic- 
tion to  all  who  got  to  know  him,  as  his  memory  still  is. 
I  never  missed  a  chance  of  hearing  him  preach  or 
deliver  a  spiritual  address,  especially  when  he  pre- 
pared any  of  us  for  Holy  Communion.  And  amongst 
other  things  I  learned,  as  all  the  members  of  Christ 
Church  did  in  time,  that  strength  and  austerity  are 
not  necessarily  united,  and  that  lowliness  of  heart 
may  go  along  with  considerable  firmness  of  hand. 
That  this  was  the  case  with  the  Dean  was  tested  in 
the  years  during  which  he  governed  Christ  Church. 
He  was  one  of  the  finest  administrators  Oxford  ever 
had,  both  as  Dean  and  Bishop,  and  yet  no  one  ever 
saw  him  either  ruffled  or  assertive  in  manner  or  word. 
For  years  after  I  entered  the  Nonconformist  ministry 


52        A  SPIRITUAL  PILGRIMAGE 


I  continued  the  habit  of  consulting  him  when  in  per- 
plexity. And  though  through  force  of  circumstances 
this  had  to  be  diminished  as  time  went  on,  I  never 
completely  lost  touch  with  him  to  the  day  of  his  death. 
I  think  his  was  the  most  sanctified  personality  I  have 
ever  known. 

Paradoxical  as  it  may  sound,  one  of  the  first  fruits 
of  the  spiritual  awakening  I  underwent  was  to  make 
me  seek  out  Nonconformists  afresh.  I  did  this  while 
I  was  still  unsettled,  but  without  concealing  for  an 
instant  either  my  churchmanship  or  my  intention  of 
seeking  Holy  Orders.  It  came  about  very  naturally. 
As  my  heart  was  now  on  fire  of  God  I  went  any- 
where that  I  found  spiritual  fervor,  more  especially 
as  I  wanted  to  test  one  school  by  observing  the  ways 
of  others.  I  visited  the  Y.M.C.A.  and  was  speedily 
drawn  into  service  there  by  the  good  and  generous 
secretary,  Mr.  Marshall  Badger,  who  still  remains  a 
much  respected  friend  of  mine.  He  was  then  and  is 
now  a  communicant  of  the  Church  of  England,  and 
firmly  evangelical  in  his  views.  But  he  never  lost  a 
chance  of  bringing  all  schools  of  thought  together  on 
his  platform.  I  once  had  the  satisfaction  of  securing 
Dean  Paget  for  him  for  some  function  or  other,  not- 
withstanding the  Dean's  pronounced  sacramental 
convictions  which  did  not  allow  him  to  mix  very  much 
with  bodies  which  did  not  share  them.  Through  this 
Y.M.C.A.  association  I  was  brought  into  contact  with 
Oxford  Nonconformists,  and  was  frequently  asked 
to  speak  and  even  preach  for  them.  With  much  fear 
and  trembling  I  did  it,  for  I  was  terribly  nervous  of 


THE  UNIVERSITY 


53 


public  appearances,  but  soon  got  used  to  the  sound 
of  my  own  voice  in  religious  assemblies.  A  friend  of 
my  father,  Mr.  Holmes,  the  local  United  Methodist 
minister,  gave  me  plenty  to  do  in  this  way  and  was 
one  of  the  pleasantest  companions  I  had  during  the 
whole  period  of  my  stay  in  Oxford.  He  was  a  very 
kind-hearted  man,  and  he  and  Mrs.  Holmes  used  to 
make  me  very  welcome  to  their  house.  They  were  not 
in  the  least  disturbed  by  the  fact  that  I  belonged  to 
the  Church  of  England,  nor  in  their  view  was  it  any 
disqualification  for  taking  part  in  religious  services 
under  their  auspices.  This  was  the  first  time  that 
Free  Methodists,  I  judge,  had  ever  heard  of  my 
existence.  After  my  first  year,  at  the  request  of  the 
Dean,  I  gave  up  appearing  in  Nonconformist  assem- 
blies. He  said  there  was  no  harm  in  it,  but  that  it 
seemed  to  him  undesirable  on  several  accounts.  So, 
for  the  remainder  of  my  undergraduate  course  or 
nearly  such,  I  stuck  rigidly  to  my  own  communion 
and  the  society  of  Anglo-Catholics. 

All  this  time  I  had  been  steadily  reading  for  Orders 
concurrently  with  Divinity  Moderations  and  the  Pre- 
liminary Law  Examination  necessary  for  my  degree 
work.  I  had  begun  the  reading  for  Orders  some  time 
before  coming  up,  so  that  by  the  end  of  my  first  year 
at  Oxford  I  was  ready  for  the  Bishop's  examination. 
I  attended  Canon  Bright's  lectures,  and  even  thought 
of  taking  my  degree  in  theology,  but  the  Dean  and 
my  tutor  both  advised  otherwise,  quite  rightly  repre- 
senting that  a  more  general  culture,  such  as  the  His- 
tory School  required,  was  preferable  as  a  foundation 


54       A  SPIRITUAL  PILGRIMAGE 


for  one's  after  work  in  the  Church.  By  now  I  had 
become  convinced  that  if  I  were  ordained  at  all  I 
ought  to  give  myself  wholly  and  sincerely  to  the 
priesthood  and  no  longer  think  of  making  it  a  mere 
addition  to  work  of  another  sort.  The  only  question 
before  my  mind  was  as  to  whether  I  were  worthy  of 
such  a  vocation,  and  if  so,  how  it  could  best  be  exer- 
cised. 

But  as  the  end  of  my  course  drew  near  I  felt  in- 
creasing difficulty  in  whole-heartedly  accepting  the 
Anglo- Catholic  view  of  the  Church  and  the  ministry. 
I  read  all  the  apologetic  of  the  school  conscientiously. 
Never  proportionately  have  I  devoted  so  much  time 
and  attention  to  any  literature  as  to  that.  I  was 
steeped  in  it,  but  it  did  not  hold  me.  If  it  had  been  a 
question  of  the  devotional  atmosphere  only  I  should 
have  been  absolutely  satisfied  and  at  rest.  If  the  lure 
of  a  single  consecrated  personality  had  been  enough  I 
should  have  been  glad  to  follow  Dean  Paget  any- 
where. If  temperament  had  been  allowed  to  have  its 
way  I  should  have  been  a  ritualist  of  the  first  order.. 
But  there  were  two  outstanding  facts  I  could  not  get 
over.  The  first  was  that  in  Nonconformity,  and  espe- 
cially in  the  Presbyterianism  of  my  childhood,  I  had 
seen  a  type  of  Christian  character  and  a  piety  as 
true  and  earnest  as  anything  within  the  Anglican 
system.  The  second  was  that,  so  far  as  one  could 
then  see,  if  the  Anglo- Catholic  theory  of  the  Church 
were  the  true  one  I  should  not  feel  safe  outside  Rome, 
and  I  was  not  prepared  to  go  to  Rome. 

As  regards  the  former  I  had  to  admit  that  there 


THE  UNIVERSITY  55 

were  certain  psychological  differences  to  be  taken  into 
account.  I  think  so  still.  There  is  no  mistaking  the 
fact  that,  on  the  whole,  Catholicism,  Roman  or  Angli- 
can, produces  a  somewhat  different  kind  of  character 
from  that  which  is  fostered  by  Protestantism,  whether 
established  as  in  the  case  of  the  Scottish  and  Lutheran 
Churches  or  unestablished  as  in  the  evangelical 
Churches  of  England  and  America.  That  patent 
distinction  seems  to  me  more  obvious  now.  I  think 
it  is  Dr.  John  Hunter  who  says  that  Catholicism 
brings  people  to  their  knees  and  that  Protestantism 
brings  them  to  their  feet,  both  attitudes  being  eter- 
nally true  and  necessary.  I  would  myself  add  to 
this  judgment  the  observation  that  where  the  sacra- 
ment of  the  altar  is  held  in  honor,  you  always  get,  or 
tend  to  get,  a  humbler,  more  docile,  more  refined  type 
of  piety.  Individual  instances  pointing  in  a  diff  erent 
direction  do  not  invalidate  this  general  statement. 
The  strength  and  ruggedness  of  Nonconformity,  as 
of  old-time  Puritanism,  are  scarcely  compatible  with 
what  is  to  me  the  most  attractive  kind  of  devotion,  nor 
even  the  most  winsome  Christian  spirit.  I  have  often 
heard  Nonconformists  say  that  the  altar  would  come 
between  them  and  Christ.  Personally,  I  have  found 
the  exact  contrary,  and  no  Catholic  that  I  have  ever 
heard  of  would  say  otherwise.  It  appears  to  me  to  be 
psychologically  true  that  subjectivity  in  religion  tends 
to  isolation  unless  balanced  by  a  sacramental  view  of 
life.  And  so  far  from  encouraging  spirituality  it 
often  results  in  secularity.  This  is  its  besetting  dan- 
ger.   Would  anyone  seriously  affirm  that  the  de- 


56        A  SPIRITUAL  PILGRIMAGE 


meanor  of  the  average  Nonconformist  congregation  is 
more  reverential  than  that  of  the  ordinary  Anglican 
or  Roman  Catholic  before  the  Blessed  Sacrament?  Is 
it  not  clear  that  the  absence  of  sacraments  tends  to 
banish  the  consciousness  of  the  supernatural,  in  its 
religious  sense,  whereas  belief  in  the  real  presence 
tends  to  conserve  it?  I  remember  Father  Bernard 
Vaughan  once  saying  to  me  in  the  Jesuit  Church  in 
Farm  Street,  as  we  stood  gazing  together  at  the 
groups  of  silent  kneeling  worshipers,  not  one  of  whom 
turned  a  head  towards  us  as  we  entered,  that  he  could 
not  understand  how  any  spiritually-minded  man  could 
fail  to  recognize  the  Divine  Presence  under  such  condi- 
tions. He  went  on  to  apply  the  moral  that  the  Church 
of  England  could  not  have  that  peculiar  holy  atmos- 
phere because  it  did  not  possess  the  true  apostolic 
succession.  I  freely  admitted  his  premise,  but  not 
his  conclusion.  I  told  him  I  had  had  exactly  the  same 
feeling  in  St.  Alban's,  Holborn,  and  that  I  believed 
it  to  be  caused  by  the  sacrament  itself,  operating 
through  the  faith  of  those  who  prayed  before  it,  and 
not  to  his  particular  theory  of  its  efficacy.  I  have 
been  conscious  of  it  hundreds  of  times  before  and 
since  in  Roman  churches  abroad  and  Anglican 
churches  wherein  the  sacrament  is  reserved  at  home. 
Take  any  place  of  worship,  Anglican  or  Noncon- 
formist, wherein  the  sacramental  idea  finds  no  place, 
and — I  say  it  with  all  respect — the  peculiar  quality 
of  Catholic  saintship  at  its  best,  that  sweet,  calm, 
lowly  confidence  with  a  touch  of  awe  in  it,  that  exalted 
serenity  which  it  always  exhibits,  will  be  missing.  It 


THE  UNIVERSITY 


57 


may  be  pointed  out  that  the  members  of  the  Society 
of  Friends  are  characterized  by  it.  That  is  not  quite 
the  case.  They  have  their  own  special  excellence,  but 
it  is  not  just  that.  And  I  have  often  thought  that 
the  Society  of  Friends,  which  professes  to  be  the  least 
sacramental  of  all  Nonconformist  bodies,  is  in  reality 
more  sacramental  in  its  susceptibilities  than  any  of 
them.  All  the  Quakers  I  have  ever  known  have  illus- 
trated this.  Their  habit  of  stillness,  listening  and 
expectant,  renders  them  sensitively  responsive  to  all 
higher  influences  through  whatsoever  media  they  may 
come.  Readers  of  Whittier's  poetry  cannot  fail  to 
note  this.  And  the  Rev.  Cyril  Hepher  in  his  "Fruits 
of  Silence"  supplies  an  exceedingly  interesting  testi- 
mony to  the  same  effect.  As  for  other  Nonconform- 
ists who  believe  more  in  speaking  "with  the  tongues 
of  men  and  of  angels"  than  in  the  blessedness  of 
silence,  and  assume  that  with  the  gift  of  prophecy 
they  "understand  all  mysteries  and  all  knowledge," 
what  I  have  said  above  confessedly  holds  good.  The 
kind  of  character  they  make  is  fine  and  upright, 
strong,  fearless  and  independent,  but  it  is  seldom 
lowly  or  reverent  in  the  fullest  sense.  Nevertheless, 
remembering  my  grandfather,  I  could  not  but  be 
aware  that  it  possessed  true  sanctity.  And  to  un- 
church that  good  man  and  the  system  that  produced 
him  seemed  to  me  impossible.  I  argued  that  no  one 
ecclesiastical  system  could  be  essential  to  the  growth 
of  Christian  virtue  or  the  maintenance  of  fellowship 
with  God.  Anglo-Catholics  I  felt  to  be  non-suited 
in  their  main  contention  by  the  very  fact  of  their 


58        A  SPIRITUAL  PILGRIMAGE 


denying  apostolicity  to  so  large  a  portion  of  Christen- 
dom wherein  the  fruits  of  holiness  were  so  plainly 
apparent. 

As  regards  the  Church  of  Rome  my  mind  was 
equally  clear  though  my  ignorance  was  greater.  I 
had  no  drawings  toward  Rome,  nor  could  I  feel  that 
her  historical  record  gave  attestation  to  her  claim 
to  speak  with  exclusive  authority  in  the  name  of  the 
Most  High.  I  know  that  venerable  communion  bet- 
ter now;  in  fact,  I  think  I  might  fairly  say  that  I 
know  it  as  well  as  any  outsider  can.  Some  of  my 
closest  and  best  loved  friends  are  Roman  priests,  and 
I  owe  much  to  them.  To  one  in  particular,  now  get- 
ting on  in  years,1  a  distant  relative  on  my  mother's 
side,  I  owe  a  constantly  mounting  debt  of  gratitude. 
We  have  been  intimate  for  the  past  twenty  years, 
and  through  him  I  have  come  into  contact  with  many 
interesting  Roman  Catholics  both  in  this  country 
and  on  the  Continent,  and  also  in  America.  Through- 
out my  ministry  I  have  always  been  on  friendly  terms 
with  Roman  Catholics,  and  I  think  I  may  venture  to 
say  that  they  have  always  trusted  me.  Anything  I 
have  wanted  to  know  they  have  told  me  frankly ;  any 
courtesy  or  consideration  they  could  show  has  always 
been  shown.  Cardinal  Bourne,  for  instance,  took  the 
trouble  to  make  my  visit  to  Spain  some  years  ago 
exceedingly  profitable  and  illuminating.  I  wanted  to 
see  something  of  the  inside  of  Catholic  life  in  that 
country,  and  told  him  so.    He  promptly  opened  all 

1  Monsignor  Canon  Johnston.  He  has  died  since  these  words 
were  written. 


THE  UNIVERSITY 


59 


doors,  and  I  was  treated  throughout  my  tour  as  if  I 
had  been  a  Catholic  myself.  Indeed,  I  was  more  than 
once  taken  for  one,  and  on  one  occasion  was  actually 
asked  to  say  Mass  in  a  monastery  in  San  Sebastian. 
When  I  enlightened  my  kind  host  he  was  greatly 
amused,  and  speculated  as  to  what  might  have  hap- 
pened had  I  taken  him  at  his  word.  I  have  always 
been  a  great  traveler,  and  from  what  I  have  learned 
at  first  hand  of  the  inside  of  the  Roman  Catholic 
Church  in  France,  Spain,  Italy,  and  the  United  States 
I  have  shed  any  prejudices  against  her  that  I  ever 
had.  Her  spiritual  life  is  too  real  and  deep  to  permit 
of  anyone  who  knows  it  describing  her  as  apostate  or 
anti- Christ  or  any  other  of  the  deadly  things  militant 
Protestants  are  accustomed  to  charge  against  her. 
To  be  sure  the  seamy  side  is  there  too,  but  where  is  it 
not?  Never  was  a  truer  saying  than  that  of  George 
Tyrrell,  that  if  Rome  dies  the  other  churches  may 
order  their  coffins.  As  will  be  seen  later,  my  study  of 
Roman  Catholic  literature  within  the  last  ten  years, 
as  well  as  my  constant  intercourse  with  gifted  repre- 
sentatives of  that  Church,  has  had  the  curious,  and  I 
should  think  not  very  usual,  eff  ect  of  helping  to  draw 
me  back  to  Anglicanism. 

But  while  at  Oxford  I  had  no  predilections  in 
favor  of  Rome.  I  had  a  Roman  Catholic  coach  for 
a  time,  a  very  able  man,  and  I  think  I  attended  Mass 
at  St.  Aloysius  twice,  but  I  never  had  the  faintest 
desire  to  make  any  closer  acquaintance  with  it. 
Partly,  no  doubt,  this  was  because  in  my  history  work 
I  was  familiarized  with  the  sinister  side  of  the  political 


60        A  SPIRITUAL  PILGRIMAGE 

activities  of  the  Papacy,  and  also  with  the  moral 
slough  into  which  it  repeatedly  fell.  Besides,  I  felt 
then,  and  feel  now,  that  Papal  absolutism  is  an  illicit 
development  from  apostolic  Christianity.  If  it  had 
been  from  the  first  what  Roman  apologists  allege, 
the  Fathers  ought  to  have  known  more  about  it.  No 
unprejudiced  reader  can  avoid  seeing  that  the  ex- 
tremest  sacerdotalist  among  the  Fathers  does  not 
think  of  the  apostolic  see  in  the  same  way  in  which  a 
modern  Roman  Catholic  does.  It  was  not  omnipres- 
ent to  the  former  as  it  is  to  the  latter. 

This  is  not  the  place  to  argue  the  issue  just  raised, 
even  if  it  were  called  for,  which  it  is  not.  I  only  make 
the  remark  in  passing  to  indicate  why  I  could  never 
join  the  Church  of  Rome  even  if  there  were  no  doc- 
trinal barrier  in  the  way. 

But  at  the  period  of  which  I  am  writing — that  is, 
towards  the  end  of  my  undergraduate  course  at  Christ 
Church — I  began  to  face  seriously  the  question  as  to 
whether  the  Anglo-Catholic  theory  of  churchmanship 
could  defend  itself  against  Rome.  Not,  I  repeat,  that 
I  had  any  thought  of  Rome.  The  issue  to  me  envis- 
aged itself  thus:  If  the  Church  is  what  my  High 
Church  preceptors  say,  then  the  best  thing  to  do  is 
to  go  over  to  Rome  at  once,  for  there  can  be  no  doubt 
about  the  genuineness  of  Roman  orders,  whereas  there 
does  seem  to  be  a  good  deal  of  doubt  about  ours.  And 
it  is  quite  absurd  to  go  over  to  Rome:  therefore  this 
theoiy  of  the  Church  does  not  fit  the  facts.  Anglican- 
ism itself  is  not  entirely  ruled  by  it,  and  the  great  non- 
episcopal  bodies  everywhere  flourish  on  quite  another. 


THE  UNIVERSITY 


61 


I  stated  my  difficulties  to  the  Dean,  but  I  do  not  think 
he  ever  fully  met  them.  Neither  did  anyone  else,  and 
I  grew  more  and  more  unwilling  to  go  forward  for 
ordination  with  the  question  left  open.  Bound  up 
with  this  question  was  another,  that  of  the  authority 
on  which  we  accepted  Christian  doctrine.  Problems 
began  to  accumulate  in  this  sphere,  and  I  wanted  to 
think  them  out  unfettered.  I  felt  I  must  be  free, 
and  so  in  the  end  I  told  the  Dean  that  I  could  not  see 
my  way  to  subscribe  to  the  Prayer  Book  or,  indeed, 
to  any  other  formulary,  and  that  I  should  enter  my 
grandfather's  communion  wherein  no  doctrinal  sub- 
scription was  required.  He  told  me  what  I  have 
since  abundantly  found  to  be  true,  that  that  supposed 
liberty  did  not  really  exist,  or,  if  it  did,  it  would  mean 
the  subversion  of  Christianity  were  it  to  be  universally 
accepted,  that  the  authority  of  tradition  and  reason 
must  go  hand  in  hand  or  nothing  but  anarchy  could 
result,  and  much  to  the  same  eff ect.  But  his  delicacy 
was  too  great  to  permit  him  to  press  me  unduly  when 
he  saw  that  I  had  made  up  my  mind.  Gravely  and 
wisely  he  talked  to  me  for  my  own  good,  and  con- 
tinued to  take  exactly  the  same  interest  in  my  future 
as  before.  The  night  before  finally  leaving  Oxford 
I  had  one  last  long  conversation  with  this  true  servant 
of  God,  going  from  the  Deanery  to  my  rooms  about 
midnight.  I  felt  rather  sad,  but  deeply  impressed. 
I  do  not  think  I  regretted  the  course  I  was  taking. 
The  decision  had  been  made  solemnly  and  prayerfully 
with  such  light  as  I  had,  and  under  the  circumstances 
I  felt  quietly  assured  that  God  would  bless  it  Dean 


62        A  SPIRITUAL  PILGRIMAGE 


Paget  said  he  thought  I  would  not  be  happy  outside 
the  Church,  and  that  I  would  be  compelled  to  return 
to  it  before  long.  In  this  he  was  mistaken,  as  events 
proved;  it  was  twenty  years  before  I  returned  to  it, 
and  in  the  meantime  much  had  happened. 

Of  necessity  I  have  had  to  omit  many  details  lead- 
ing up  to  the  momentous  choice  here  recorded.  I  was 
not  given  to  wearing  my  heart  on  my  sleeve  or 
plaguing  important  people  with  interviews  on  my 
spiritual  condition.  For  two  years  past  I  had  been 
quite  settled  and  at  peace  in  my  mind  with  regard 
to  the  main  facts  of  my  spiritual  experience.  Very 
humbly,  I  might  almost  have  said  with  the  apostle 
Paul:  "To  me,  to  live  is  Christ."  From  my  first 
year  at  Oxford  onwards  our  blessed  Lord  has  ever 
been  central  and  indispensable  to  my  Christian  life. 
My  religion  has  been  mainly  my  relationship  to  Him, 
though  it  has  found  varying  modes  of  expression.  It 
should  not  be  overlooked  that  my  discovery  or  re- 
discovery of  Christ,  and  with  it  the  definite  awakening 
of  my  whole  spiritual  nature,  was  closely  associated 
from  the  first  with  Anglo-Catholic  sacramentalism, 
and  I  have  never  really  got  away  from  the  effect  thus 
produced  upon  my  thought  of  Him.  It  has  colored  all 
my  teaching,  even  in  its  extremest  liberalism,  as  many 
Anglicans  have  been  quick  to  see.  Thus  Canon 
Hepher  already  quoted  speaks  of  "the  sacramental 
leanings  of  Mr.  Campbell's  followers."  Bishop  Gore, 
Canon  Adderley,  Father  Bull  of  the  Mirfield  Com- 
munity, and  others  have  spoken  in  the  same  strain. 
The  exaggerated  immanentism  of  the  new  theology 


THE  UNIVERSITY 


63 


was  not  a  denial  of  the  sacramental  idea,  but  a  perver- 
sion of  it.  And  my  hold  on  Christ  never  weakened, 
never  wavered,  never  failed,  despite  all  asseverations 
to  the  contrary.  This  was  the  great  permanent  ac- 
quisition of  the  spiritual  quickening  I  underwent  at 
Oxford.  In  my  last  year  there  questions  ecclesiastical 
and  theological  emerged  for  solution,  but  did  not  over- 
shadow it  in  the  slightest.  I  was  willing  to  go  any- 
where and  do  anything  that  might  bring  glory  to  my 
Lord,  however  small.  I  was,  too,  in  the  mood  for 
sacrifice.  The  privileged  position  of  the  Anglican 
Church  accorded  ill  with  my  longing  for  lowly  and 
unpretentious  service  of  Him  who  was  content  to  be 
regarded  on  earth  as  the  carpenter's  son.  I  felt  I 
would  sooner  work  with  those  who  had  not  social 
recognition  than  with  those  who  had. 

All  that  happened  in  the  first  instance  after  my 
refusal  to  be  ordained  was  that  I  went  on  preparing 
for  a  resumption  of  academic  occupation  after  taking 
my  degree,  but  as  a  layman  instead  of  a  clergyman. 
I  rather  hoped  to  get  a  lectureship  and  stay  on  at  the 
University.  The  Dean  favored  this  idea,  especially 
as  my  excellent  tutor,  Arthur  Hassall,  the  much  ap- 
preciated friend  and  guide  of  successive  generations 
of  history  men  at  Christ  Church,  expected  me  to  take 
a  first  in  the  honor  schools.  Alas  for  expectations! 
When  the  great  week  came  I  was  seized  in  the  exami- 
nation room  on  the  very  first  day  with  one  of  the 
worst  illnesses  I  have  ever  had.  I  was  compelled  to 
give  up  when  I  had  only  done,  I  think,  one  paper. 
To  the  best  of  my  belief  I  only  answered  one  question 


64       A  SPIRITUAL  PILGRIMAGE 


in  that  paper,  or  only  one  fully,  and  that  was  a  ques- 
tion about  the  campaigns  of  Wallace,  a  subject  I  had 
never  read  a  word  about  at  Oxford,  but  remembered 
from  my  boyish  enthusiasms  about  that  romantic  hero 
in  my  north  of  Ireland  days.  I  think  I  remember  Mr. 
Hassall  telling  me  afterwards  that  I  was  the  only 
candidate  who  attempted  it.  Anyhow  I  did  not  at- 
tempt much  else.  I  fainted  twice  outside  the  exami- 
nation room  and  had  to  be  taken  home,  the  doctor 
refusing  to  allow  me  to  go  back.  It  was  a  terrible 
blow,  and  I  thought  it  would  ruin  my  academic  pros- 
pects. But  Mr.  Hassall,  like  the  kind-hearted  and 
energetic  guardian  of  his  pupils'  interests  he  has  ever 
been,  took  prompt  action,  with  the  result  that  the  ex- 
aminers resolved  to  invite  me  up  to  Oxford  again 
when  I  was  well  enough  to  travel  and  put  me  through 
a  further  test.  This  was  wonderfully  good  of  them. 
Perhaps  the  Wallace  paper  influenced  their  decision 
a  little,  I  do  not  know.  But  it  did  not  seem  to  me 
to  be  of  much  use,  as  when  I  actually  did  come  I  was 
still  quite  unfit  to  make  any  serious  eff ort.  However, 
I  soon  found  when  I  got  there  that  the  very  human 
group  of  high  authorities  who  had  matters  in  charge, 
with  Mr.  A.  L.  Smith,  the  present  master  of  Balliol, 
at  their  head,  knew  all  about  me  and  had  arranged 
accordingly.  The  examination  was  only  a  form  in 
order  to  comply  with  the  statutes.  They  kept  me 
but  a  few  minutes,  and  employed  most  of  the  time 
in  friendly  condolence  on  my  mishap.  They  had 
already  made  up  their  minds  what  to  do,  and  gave 
me  a  place  in  the  second  class.   Mr.  Hassall  also  in- 


THE  UNIVERSITY 


65 


sisted  that  there  was  not  the  least  reason  why  I  should 
not  put  in  at  once  for  a  University  appointment.  It 
was  too  late,  however;  the  die  was  cast,  as  will  be 
seen.  I  had  chosen  another  course.  It  is  worth  re- 
mark, perhaps,  that  only  two  days  after  my  induction 
as  a  Congregational  minister  in  Brighton  I  received 
a  letter  from  Oxford  asking  whether  I  would  consider 
the  offer  of  a  lectureship.  How  differently  my  lot 
would  have  shaped  itself  had  I  sent  an  affirmative 
reply,  which  I  could  not  in  decency  do!  It  was  not 
to  be. 

Some  time  before,  I  forget  at  what  date  precisely, 
the  minister  of  George  Street  Congregational 
Church,  Oxford,  happened  to  be  in  Brighton  and 
mentioned  my  name  to  the  authorities  of  Union  Street 
Church  there.  They  were  looking  for  a  minister,  and 
I  think  he  must  have  been  aware  of  the  fact,  though 
whether  he  suggested  me  as  a  likely  person  to  fill  the 
vacancy  I  do  not  know.  I  should  suppose  that  he  did 
not  go  so  far,  merely  indicating  that  I  might  be  in- 
vited to  occupy  the  pulpit  for  a  Sunday.  I  went, 
and  the  immediate  and  unexpected  result  was  a  unani- 
mous call  to  take  full  charge  of  the  church.  I  sub- 
mitted this  to  Dr.  Fairbairn  as  the  one  person  I  knew 
best  qualified  to  advise  in  the  matter.  His  first  opinion 
is  recorded  above,  and  had  such  weight  with  me  that  I 
declined  the  invitation.  After  a  short  interval  it  was 
made  a  second  time  and  with  greater  insistence  than 
before.  I  took  the  letter  straight  to  Dr.  Fairbairn 
and  laid  it  before  him  without  a  word.  He  read  it 
quietly  through,  and  then,  folding  it  up  and  handing 


66       A  SPIRITUAL  PILGRIMAGE 


it  back  to  me,  said  very  solemnly  and  emphatically: 
"You  cannot  decline  this;  it  is  a  call  of  God."  So  I 
thought  myself,  and  still  do.  Without  further  delay 
I  notified  my  acceptance  to  the  Brighton  people,  and 
so  ended  one  of  the  most  important  chapters  in  my 
history,  and  another  and  widely  different  one  be- 
gan. 

It  may  be  of  some  interest  to  recall  here  in  this 
connection  that  I  spent  the  last  day  before  com- 
mencing my  work  at  Brighton  in  the  Cloisters  at 
Westminster  Abbey  with  Canon  Gore  as  he  then  was. 
We  talked  over  many  things,  but  perhaps  he  will 
remember  two  observations  in  particular  which  he 
made  to  me  on  that  occasion.  He  warned  me  that 
what  he  called  my  "mystical  tendencies"  needed  to 
be  carefully  watched,  as  they  were  apt  to  lead  to 
pantheism;  and  secondly,  he  expressed  the  firm  con- 
viction that  such  a  temperament  as  mine  could  not 
find  permanent  satisfaction  in  Nonconformity,  but 
would  be  bound  to  return  to  the  Church  sooner  or 
later.   In  this  he  has  proved  to  be  a  true  prophet. 

Dean  Paget  wrote  as  follows: 

First  let  me  tell  you  with  what  sympathy  I  viewed  the 
failure  of  health  which  hindered  you  showing  in  the  Schools 
the  outcome  of  your  hard  and  persevering  work.  I  was, 
indeed,  and  am,  deeply  sorry  for  it.  Such  disappointments 
are  very  difficult  to  bear,  but  I  am  sure  that  you  will  bear 
yours  in  the  spirit  which  wrests  from  disappointments  their 
hidden  good,  and  sometimes  enables  men  to  look  back  after 
a  while  and  see  them  in  an  aspect  very  different  from  what 
they  wore  at  first. 


THE  UNIVERSITY 


67 


I  will  follow  the  example  of  your  reserve  and  not  enter 
into  the  choice  which  you  have  made  in  joining  the  Congre- 
gationalist  ministry.  For  I  need  not  tell  you  how  sure  I 
am  that  you  have  acted  with  sincerity  and  with  an  earnest 
desire  to  do  good,  and  that  you  have  not  acted  without 
grave  and  prolonged  thought.  I  venture  to  trust  heartily 
that  your  work  and  influence  in  the  ministry  to  which  you 
have  given  yourself  may  be  like  that  of  two  whom  I  have 
been  privileged  to  reckon  among  my  friends — Dr.  R.  W. 
Dale  and  Dr.  G.  Barrett. 

You  have  shown  among  us  strength  of  character  as  well 
as  of  intellect,  and  your  career  at  Christ  Church  has  been 
without  blame — you  have  worked,  I  fear,  beyond  what  your 
strength  allowed — and  it  was  an  excellent  promise  of  success 
that  was  checked  by  your  illness. 

This  letter  by  the  Dean's  desire  was  read  to  the 
Church  at  Brighton  at  what  is  usually  termed  the 
official  recognition  of  one  newly  admitted  to  the  min- 
istry. Another  dangerous  illness  occurred  on  my 
return  from  South  Africa  in  1900  during  the  Boer 
War.  I  had  contracted  enteric  fever,  and  Dr.  Paget 
again  wrote: 

I  cannot  tell  you  how  very  sorry  I  am  to  hear  of  your 
serious  illness :  the  news  of  it  came  to  me  as  a  sudden  shock. 
I  am  heartily  thankful  to  hear  that  you  have  reached  the 
stage  of  convalescence,  and  I  trust  earnestly  that  you  may 
have,  please  God,  a  happy  and  unhindered  recovery.  There 
is  often,  I  think,  a  sense  of  rest  and  quiet  in  that  sheltered 
time  of  convalescence  which  one  hardly  gets  in  any  other 
holiday. 


68       A  SPIRITUAL  PILGRIMAGE 


The  rest  of  the  letter  is  too  private  for  publication. 
The  Dean  became  Bishop  in  the  following  year,  and 
only  once  afterwards  did  I  have  the  opportunity  of 
any  long  conversation  with  him,  but  that  is  a  happy 
memory.  I  met  him  during  a  short  tour  in  Nor- 
mandy, and  we  visited  scenes  of  interest  in  company. 
After  my  coming  to  the  City  Temple  our  intercourse 
practically  ceased  as  he  was  no  longer  head  of  the 
College  and  I  seldom  visited  Oxford. 


CHAPTER  IV 

MINISTRY  IN  BRIGHTON 

Old  Union  Street  Church,  Brighton,  to  which  I 
was  now  appointed,  was  the  mother  Nonconformist 
church  of  the  district.  It  dated  from  1662,  having 
been  founded  by  one  of  the  ministers  ejected  from 
the  national  church  under  the  Act  of  Uniformity  on 
St.  Bartholomew's  Day  of  that  fateful  year.  Non- 
conformity may,  properly  speaking,  be  said  to  have 
begun  then.  One  wonders  what  might  have  hap- 
pened if  a  wiser  and  more  tolerant  policy  had  been 
pursued  by  those  in  power  at  the  time;  we  should 
have  been  saved  centuries  of  religious  bitterness  and 
strife.  No  doubt  it  was  too  much  to  expect  of  human 
nature  in  the  circumstances  of  the  moment.  Epis- 
copacy had  for  so  long  been  proscribed  and  perse- 
cuted under  the  Puritan  regime  that  it  is  no  wonder 
the  reaction  was  so  violent  and  went  to  such  extremes. 
It  should  not  be  forgotten  either  that  a  considerable 
proportion  of  the  two  thousand  who  were  thus  de- 
prived of  their  cures  had  been  installed  by  Cromwell's 
Triers,  and  in  other  ways  at  the  expense  of  the 
Laudian  school,  and  indeed  of  prelacy  in  general. 
Very  many  of  them  were  really  Presbyterians 
and  would  never  have  been  content  to  accept 

69 


70       A  SPIRITUAL  PILGRIMAGE 


episcopal  rule,  however  mild.  Something  drastic 
needed  to  be  done  to  restore  order  within  the  Church, 
but  it  is  to  be  deplored  that  what  actually  was  done 
was  so  harsh  and  overbearing  as  to  drive  out  into 
the  wilderness  the  most  scholarly,  devout,  and  earnest 
elements  among  the  clergy.  Had  they  been  retained 
under  wise  and  statesman-like  safeguards  the  dis- 
tinctively English  religious  development  known  as 
Nonconformity  would  never  have  taken  root.  There 
would  have  been  no  voluntary  secession  on  a  large 
scale.  It  should  never  be  lost  sight  of  that  the 
schisms  from  which  we  are  sufF ering  today  have  been 
far  more  the  creation  of  the  establishment  than  of 
the  sectarian  bodies  themselves,  the  rise  of  Methodism 
being  the  last  flagrant  instance  of  this.  Nonconform- 
ists did  not  willingly  become  Nonconformists;  they 
were  driven  out.  Let  this  be  remembered  in  all  seri- 
ous overtures  to  win  them  back.1 

Union  Street  was  very  proud  of  its  history.  This 
is  a  feature  of  Nonconformity  that  I  have  noticed 
over  and  over  again.  If  a  church  can  trace  its  origin 
to  some  capital  date  in  our  national  life — and  the 
farther  back  the  better — it  never  loses  sight  of  the 

1  Of  course  I  am  not  begging  the  question  as  to  the  gravity  of 
the  issue  at  stake  between  the  original  Nonconformists  in  the 
strict  sense  of  the  term  (whose  Nonconformity  did  not  extend 
to  a  desire  for  separation)  and  the  Anglicans,  properly  so  called. 
The  Puritan  party  wished  for  a  complete  break  with  the  past,  and 
would  have  destroyed  the  historic  fabric  of  the  Church.  But 
what  I  suggest  is  that  a  more  generous  treatment  would  have 
retained  and  ultimately  won  them. 


MINISTRY  IN  BRIGHTON  71 


fact;  nor  does  the  tradition  fail  to  exercise  a  certain 
influence  upon  the  character  of  the  society  itself. 
This  was  certainly  the  case  with  Union  Street.  One 
felt  that  it  was  not  of  yesterday;  everybody  felt  it. 
It  had  a  wealth  of  memories  extending  over  genera- 
tions, and  I  used  to  fancy  that  the  people  partook  of 
the  quality  of  their  grave  and  sober  predecessors  who 
had  for  so  long  worshiped  in  that  sacred  place. 
They  were  remarkably  independent  in  their  ways,  yet 
quiet  and  homely,  and  full  of  the  spirit  of  mutual 
loyalty  and  human  kindness.  It  was  a  matter  of 
pride  with  them  that  there  never  had  been  any  grave 
disputes  in  connection  with  that  house  of  prayer,  nor 
any  disorders  worthy  of  record.  I  can  quite  believe 
it. 

In  contradistinction  to  many  other  Nonconform- 
ist societies  they  were  always  loving  and  united,  and 
nothing  if  not  unobtrusive  and  self-contained.  The 
building  itself  was  Georgian,  with  a  few  stones  in- 
cluded from  the  original  seventeenth-century  erection. 
Its  trust  deed  was  of  the  widest,  and  just  suited  me, 
for  its  only  doctrinal  clause,  if  such  it  can  fitly  be 
termed,  ran  somewhat  thus:  "This  church  was 
erected  for  the  good  of  the  parish  and  district  of 
Brighton."  A  basis  so  comprehensive  as  this  was 
not  without  its  perils,  as  we  found  later  when  remov- 
ing to  more  suitable  premises.  Any  Mohammedan  or 
Mormon  getting  inside  the  building  while  it  stood 
empty  might  have  plausibly  claimed  to  be  fulfilling 
the  trust  by  holding  services  in  it  in  accordance  with 
his  own  notions.  I  do  not  know  what  view  the  courts 


72       A  SPIRITUAL  PILGRIMAGE 


might  have  taken  of  the  matter.  Probably  the  Char- 
ity Commissioners  might  have  had  something  to  say 
in  such  an  event.  Happily  it  was  never  put  to  the 
test. 

The  church  had  fallen  on  evil  days.  A  century 
earlier  most  of  the  land  round  about  belonged  to  it, 
but  this  had  been  filched  away  little  by  little  until 
now  nothing  was  left  but  the  ground  it  stood  on,  and 
even  that  was  so  severely  restricted  that  the  building 
was  tucked  away  up  a  side  alley  with  nothing  to  show 
the  public  that  a  place  of  worship  existed  there  at  all. 
No  vehicle  could  approach  it,  and  the  faithful  few 
who  attended  it  were  in  danger  of  being  "the  world 
forgetting,  by  the  world  forgot."  They  had  been  for 
some  time  without  a  settled  minister,  and  were  grad- 
ually reduced  to  a  mere  handful,  for  as  the  old  stal- 
warts died  off  there  were  none  to  take  their  places. 
If  I  remember  rightly  there  were  about  sixty  mem- 
bers of  the  church  at  the  time  I  accepted  the  charge. 
An  invalid  minister,  a  returned  missionary,  a  man  of 
considerable  culture  and  charm  of  spirit,  had  stepped 
into  the  gap  and  officiated,  for  some  months  before  my 
coming,  as  well  as  his  health  would  allow.  The  people 
loved  him  greatly,  and  so  did  I,  for  he  and  his  wife 
remained  on  at  the  church  for  some  time  after  I  began 
my  work,  to  my  no  small  advantage.  They  are  both 
still  living,  and  I  had  the  joy  of  renewing  old  ac- 
quaintance with  them  at  Bournemouth  the  day  before 
my  return  to  communion  in  the  Church  of  England 
last  year. 

Of  my  time  at  Union  Street  I  can  say  no  more  and 


MINISTRY  IN  BRIGHTON  73 


no  less  than  that  it  was  one  of  the  happiest  of  my 
whole  ministerial  career.  I  entered  upon  my  duties 
there  in  the  summer  of  1895,  ere  I  had  fully  recovered 
from  the  illness  above  referred  to,  the  result  being 
that  I  had  another  serious  breakdown  in  the  autumn 
and  had  to  go  away  for  some  months.  The  good 
people,  who  as  yet  scarcely  knew  me  at  all,  rose  in- 
stantly to  the  situation,  refusing  by  resolution  to 
accept  the  offer  to  resign  which  was  sent  from  my 
sick  bed.  My  medical  advisers  thought  me  unfit 
to  assume  the  burden  of  a  church,  and  doubtless 
they  were  right.  But  my  kind  little  flock  would 
not  listen  to  this  opinion.  They  sent  word  that 
I  could  do  as  much  or  as  little  as  I  liked  so  long 
as  I  remained  their  minister,  and  on  that  under- 
standing I  returned  to  them  before  the  close  of  the 
year. 

Before  long  the  church  proved  too  small  to  con- 
tain our  congregations,  and  ultimately  arrangements 
were  made  for  amalgamation  with  a  daughter  church 
some  little  distance  away  which  possessed  more  com- 
modious buildings.  But  these  were  not  of  the  best, 
and  various  schemes  were  set  on  foot  for  the  erection 
of  a  beautiful  Nonconformist  church  in  the  center  of 
Brighton  to  which  I  might  minister,  and  which  could 
at  the  same  time  furnish  a  sort  of  denominational 
headquarters  for  the  county.  Had  any  of  these  fruc- 
tified before  my  call  to  the  City  Temple  I  should  not 
have  been  able  to  leave,  as  they  would  only  have  been 
undertaken  on  the  express  understanding  that  I  re- 
mained to  see  them  through.   The  united  church  was 


74 


A  SPIRITUAL  PILGRIMAGE 


known  henceforth  as  Union  Church,  Queen  Square, 
and  still  bears  that  name. 

During  my  twenty  years  as  a  Nonconformist  minis- 
ter I  had  but  two  churches,  Union  Church,  Brighton, 
and  the  City  Temple,  London.  This  is,  I  think,  a 
not  very  common  record,  and  was  made  possible  only 
by  the  extraordinary  love  and  loyalty  of  my  people 
in  both  instances.  I  have  been  exceptionally  favored 
in  this  respect,  for,  whatever  may  be  true  of  my  ecclesi- 
astical associations  at  large,  I  have  always  been  able 
to  win  and  retain  the  affection  of  my  congregations. 
It  is  of  God's  goodness  that  it  was  so,  otherwise  I 
could  not  have  done  my  work  at  all,  especially  when 
seasons  of  public  trial  and  opposition  came.  Numer- 
ous invitations  were  extended  to  me  during  my 
Brighton  ministry  to  go  elsewhere,  but  as  I  am  by 
temperament  averse  to  changes,  and  was  more  than 
content  with  the  flock  of  my  first  love,  I  refused  them 
all  till  the  City  Temple  came  on  the  scene.  One  of 
the  most  interesting  of  these  approaches,  in  view  of 
later  developments,  came  from  Dr.  Forsyth,  the  pres- 
ent principal  of  Hackney  College.  On  his  coming 
to  London  in  1901  he  wished  me  to  succeed  him  at 
Cambridge,  putting  the  suggestion  on  the  modest 
ground  that  he  had  never  been  able  to  get  inside  the 
university  life  there,  and  that  he  thought  I  was  spe- 
cially qualified  to  do  so,  and  had  a  gift  for  laying 
hold  of  young  men  of  the  undergraduate  type.  I  was 
not  in  a  position  to  accept  a  call,  and  therefore  did 
not  allow  the  matter  to  proceed  to  the  stage  of  serious 
discussion.    The  building  project  was  on  hand  at 


MINISTRY  IN  BRIGHTON  75 


Brighton.  We  had  just  purchased  certain  property 
adjoining  the  church  premises,  which  had  to  be  paid 
for.  Till  that  was  done  or  well  on  the  way  towards 
it  there  could  be  no  question  of  my  undertaking  an- 
other charge. 

In  May,  1902,  Dr.  Parker,  whose  health  had  begun 
to  fail,  came  down  to  Brighton  to  see  me,  and  was 
my  guest  for  some  days.  He  had  an  idea  in  his  mind 
that  I  could  assist  him  by  coming  up  and  down  and 
preaching  at  the  City  Temple  as  might  be  wanted 
from  time  to  time.  We  discussed  the  matter  care- 
fully, but  I  could  not  see  my  way  to  fall  in  with  such 
an  arrangement,  as  I  felt  it  would  not  be  fair  to  the 
Brighton  church.  Later  he  put  forward  the  sugges- 
tion that  I  should  be  appointed  to  the  King's  Weigh 
House  Church  in  West  London  and  cooperate  with 
him  in  the  same  way;  and  it  may  be  interesting  to 
note  that  this  association  of  the  City  Temple  with 
the  King's  Weigh  House  Church  (sister  churches 
from  the  seventeenth  century  onward)  was  actually 
realized  for  a  time  years  afterwards  during  my  Lon- 
don ministry.  At  the  moment,  however,  I  had  to  tell 
Dr.  Parker  that  I  did  not  think  the  King's  Weigh 
House  Church  or  any  other  church  would  be  likely  to 
invite  me  to  a  position  which  would  subordinate  its 
convenience  to  that  of  the  City  Temple.  Finally, 
before  he  left  we  agreed  that  I  was  to  help  him  with 
the  famous  Thursday  morning  service  whenever  he 
felt  unequal  to  taking  it  himself.  There  was  not  the 
same  objection  to  this  as  there  would  have  been  to 
Sunday  work.   In  the  following  October  a  telegram 


76       A  SPIRITUAL  PILGRIMAGE 


from  him  claimed  fulfillment  of  the  promise.  He  was 
stricken  down  with  what  proved  to  be  his  last  illness, 
and  had  decided  to  suspend  the  Thursday  service 
unless  I  could  assume  immediate  responsibility  for  it. 
I  did  so,  and  from  that  moment  my  connection  with 
the  City  Temple  commenced.  Dr.  Parker  died  a 
few  weeks  later,  and  I  found  myself  in  a  most  deli- 
cate position.  It  was  one  thing  to  preach  in  the  City 
Temple  on  Thursday  mornings  with  him  living,  and 
quite  another  thing  to  do  it  when  he  was  gone.  The 
office-bearers  pressed  me  to  continue  it,  and  I  con- 
sented, but  while  the  matter  was  in  the  balance  ap- 
proaches were  made  to  me  by  city  men  with  a  view 
to  getting  me  in  any  eventuality  to  preach  once  a 
week  in  London,  they  guaranteeing  to  find  a  suitable 
pulpit.  But  there  was  no  need  to  do  that.  I  simply 
went  straight  on,  the  only  embarrassment  being  that 
what  must  come  to  pass  was  now  obvious  to  my  Brigh- 
ton congregation.  I  did  not  tell  anyone  at  the  time, 
but  on  the  last  occasion  when  I  saw  Dr.  Parker,  the 
dying  man  himself  solemnly  consecrated  me  to  the 
new  charge,  painfully  raising  himself  on  the  bed  and 
laying  his  hand  upon  me  and  saying,  "The  Lord  bless 
you  a  thousandfold  more  than  He  has  blessed  me." 
I  was  deeply  impressed,  and  left  the  death  chamber 
with  the  conviction  that  my  Brighton  ministry  was 
ended.  Afterwards  I  found,  but  not  till  I  had  ac- 
cepted the  call  from  the  City  Temple,  that  Dr. 
Parker  had  confided  to  one  or  two  others  his  wish 
that  I  might  be  appointed  his  successor  without  de- 
lay, so  that  the  work  should  go  on  uninterruptedly. 


MINISTRY  IN  BRIGHTON  77 


But  as  the  church  did  not  know  this,  the  action  of 
the  members  in  calling  me  to  fill  his  place  was  entirely 
their  own,  under  God's  guidance  as  I  fully  believe. 

Thus  terminated  eight  years  of  strenuous  work  in 
Brighton.  For  most  of  the  time  I  had  been  a  mem- 
ber of  the  School  Board  and  had  taken  a  more  or  less 
prominent  part  in  municipal  affairs.  The  corpora- 
tion generally  looked  to  me  to  represent  Nonconform- 
ist interests  on  public  occasions,  and  in  this  way  I 
was  brought  into  relationship  with  representative 
churchmen  whom  I  am  still  glad  to  count  among  my 
friends,  and  who  have  one  and  all  exhibited  great  and 
cordial  interest  in  my  reception  into  the  ministry  of 
the  Church  of  England.  I  found  it  no  easy  matter 
to  part  from  my  congregation,  which  was  as  unique 
in  its  way  as  that  at  the  City  Temple  has  always 
been.  It  was  mainly  a  personal  congregation  con- 
sisting largely  of  Anglicans.  For  some  reason  I 
have  never  been  able  to  attract  the  strong  and  deter- 
mined Nonconformist,  but  liberal  Anglicans  have  al- 
ways attended  my  ministry  in  large  numbers.  The 
late  W.  E.  H.  Lecky,  the  eminent  historian,  was  a 
frequent  worshiper  at  Union  Church,  and  I  am 
thankful  to  have  known  a  mind  so  rich  and  a  spirit 
so  gracious  as  his.  Canon  Fleming  often  came  in  the 
season  and  brought  others  with  him.  The  late  Sir 
Henry  Campbell  Bannerman,  Mr.  Birrell,  and  Mr. 
Lloyd  George  were  amongst  my  guests  at  Brighton 
at  one  time  or  another;  in  fact  my  house  soon  became 
a  sort  of  rendezvous  for  outstanding  people  of  all 
denominations  and  of  none  who  began  the  acquaint- 


78       A  SPIRITUAL  PILGRIMAGE 


ance  by  coming  to  hear  me  and  then  calling  upon  me. 
Mr.  Lecky  and  Sir  Henry  Campbell  Bannerman, 
though  widely  opposed  in  home  politics,  were  at  one 
in  their  estimate  of  the  seriousness  of  the  Boer  War, 
which  the  British  people  were  treating  as  a  sort  of 
summer  diversion  when  it  first  broke  out.  I  well 
remember  the  former  saying  to  me  that  from  what  he 
knew  of  the  history  and  psychology  of  the  Dutch 
race,  he  thought  we  had  very  little  idea  of  what  we 
were  undertaking.  I  owe  much  to  the  writings  of  this 
remarkable  man  from  first  to  last,  especially,  perhaps, 
to  his  History  of  European  Morals  and  Rise  and  In- 
fluence of  Rationalism  in  Europe.  I  am  glad  to  pos- 
sess a  copy  of  his  Map  of  Life — the  last  book  from  his 
pen — which  he  was  good  enough  to  present  to  me  with 
his  own  hand. 

Amongst  Nonconformists  I  had  few  intimate 
friends  then  or  at  any  other  time,  a  fact  to  which  I 
attribute  most  of  the  misconception  which  attended 
my  later  ministry.  Personal  touch  is  everything  in 
such  a  case,  and  I  did  not  possess  it.  This  was  partly, 
no  doubt,  my  own  fault — I  ought  to  have  mixed  with 
my  brother  ministers  more,  and  taken  more  account 
of  their  prejudices  as  well  as  their  deep-rooted  con- 
victions— but  partly  it  was  due  to  other  causes.  I 
had  not  been  trained  in  one  of  their  theological  semi- 
naries. I  did  not  realize  until  long  after  I  was  in  the 
Nonconformist  ministry  that  there  is  a  species  of 
Trades  Unionism  about  it.  Men  who  belong  to  the 
same  institution  or  group  of  institutions  naturally 
hang  together,  and  outsiders  are  on  a  different  foot- 


MINISTRY  IN  BRIGHTON  79 


ing.  My  own  great  college  was  no  recommendation 
to  Nonconformity.  Still,  I  admit  this  could  have  been 
got  over  if  I  had  taken  the  necessary  pains,  which  I 
never  did ;  and  if  I  were  having  my  time  over  again  I 
should  take  care  to  cultivate  Nonconformist  fellow- 
ship more  earnestly.  It  does  not  do  to  stand  aloof, 
and  is  harmful  in  many  ways.  Isolation  means  loss 
of  sympathy  and  of  the  force  that  comes  of  corpo- 
rate action. 

My  best  friend  in  the  ministry  was  Dr.  Horton  of 
Hamp  stead,  though  I  seldom  saw  him.  Up  to  a 
point  his  mind  moved  on  the  same  lines  as  my  own, 
and  his  mystic  piety  strongly  appealed  to  me.  He 
is  a  man  deservedly  loved  and  honored  far  beyond 
the  borders  of  his  own  denomination;  and  I  shall 
never  forget  while  I  live  his  generous  championship 
of  my  right  to  liberty  of  speech  and  to  common 
Christian  charity  when  the  controversy  about  my 
teaching  first  began.  The  beautiful  spirit  of  his  plea 
did  much  to  assuage  the  bitterness  with  which  I  was 
being  assailed  at  the  moment.  Almost  the  same 
might  be  said  of  Dr.  Clifford,  surely  one  of  the  most 
large-hearted  protagonists  Nonconformity  has  ever 
had.  The  vehemence  of  his  onslaughts  on  the  Church 
and  the  Bishops  has  misled  many  as  to  his  real  char- 
acter. More  than  once  during  the  Education  wran- 
gle which  raged  so  furiously  under  the  last  Conserva- 
tive government  I  tried  to  get  Mr.  Balfour  to  meet 
Dr.  Clifford  socially,  but  he  firmly  refused.  He 
would  meet  almost  anybody  else,  he  said,  but  not  a 
person  so  harsh  and  vituperative  as  the  doctor.  I 


80       A  SPIRITUAL  PILGRIMAGE 


hope  Mr.  Balfour  will  not  mind  my  recording  this 
now;  it  is  merely  amusing  at  this  distance  of  time. 
Dr.  Clifford's  strength  of  language  must  be  acknowl- 
edged to  have  been  considerable  at  that  period,  but 
of  all  the  men  I  have  ever  known  none  has  a  greater 
title  to  respect  and  admiration.  There  is  no  slightest 
touch  of  smallness  or  selfishness  in  his  whole  make- 
up; he  is  the  most  magnanimous  little  giant  in  the 
world.  I  look  back  with  peculiar  pleasure  to  one 
day  during  the  later  period  of  my  Brighton  ministry 
when  Dr.  Parker,  Dr.  Clifford,  Dr.  Alexander 
McLaren  of  Manchester,  Dr.  Horton,  and  the  Rev. 
J.  H.  Shakespeare  all  sat  at  my  table  together.  I 
believe  it  was  the  last  time  Dr.  Parker  and  Dr. 
McLaren  met  in  this  worW.  Mr.  Shakespeare  is  an- 
other man  with  whom  I  have  been  for  many  years  on 
terms  of  cordial  friendship  and  hope  to  remain  so 
until  the  end.  As  President  of  the  National  Free 
Church  Council  for  the  current  year  he  is  handling 
a  great  scheme  for  the  welding  of  all  the  historic  Non- 
conformist bodies  into  one  united  Free  Church  of 
England.  He  has  the  brain  of  a  statesman,  and  if 
anyone  can  succeed  in  such  a  project  it  is  he.  I  hope 
I  do  not  say  too  much  in  adding  that  at  the  same  time 
he  is  playing  a  leading  part  in  the  pourparlers  which 
are  going  on  between  appointed  representatives  of 
Anglicanism  and  those  of  Nonconformity  with  a 
view  ultimately  to  a  larger  union  still.  God's  bless- 
ing attend  them. 

These  reminiscences  might  be  greatly  extended;  I 
have  not  mentioned  a  tithe  of  the  interesting  people 


MINISTRY  IN  BRIGHTON  81 


with  whom  I  have  been  brought  into  relations  at  vari- 
ous points  in  my  life-history.  But  as  I  am  not  writ- 
ing an  autobiography,  but  merely  sketching  the 
course  of  my  career  in  so  far  as  it  bears  upon  my  own 
spiritual  development,  most  of  this  must  necessarily 
be  omitted.  One  further  fact  ought  perhaps  to  be 
stated.  I  never  lost  a  single  Roman  Catholic  or  An- 
glican friend  during  the  "New  Theology"  contro- 
versy ;  I  scarcely  retained  a  single  Nonconformist  one. 
Those  still  living  of  the  group  above  mentioned  were 
exceptions.  Differing  toto  coelo  from  me  on  certain 
matters  of  doctrine,  they  nevertheless  forbore  to  join 
in  personal  attacks  upon  me.  We  scarcely  ever  met, 
as  perhaps  was  natural  under  the  circumstances ;  but 
my  intercourse  with  churchmen  went  straight  on  un- 
impeded. Therein  lies  a  consideration  of  some  mo- 
ment, 

Before  taking  leave  of  this  retrospect  of  my  life 
in  Brighton,  it  is  desirable  to  show  what  influences 
were  at  work  upon  my  thought  during  those  eight 
years,  and  what  consequently  the  character  of  my  pul- 
pit teaching  was.  Broadly  speaking,  I  was  from  the 
start  what  might  be  called  liberal  evangelical  in  my 
tendencies — liberal  because  I  could  see  no  mean  be- 
tween acceptance  of  ecclesiastical  authority  and  the 
complete  exercise  of  private  judgment,  and  evangeli- 
cal because  Nonconformity  was  evangelical.  But, 
as  has  been  seen  above,  the  very  fact  that  I  had  de- 
clined ordination  in  the  Church  of  England  rather 
than  restrict  the  conception  of  churchmanship  to 
those  possessing  or  claiming  to  possess  the  historic 


82       A  SPIRITUAL  PILGRIMAGE 


episcopate  threw  me  back  upon  a  theory  of  the 
Church  which  left  little  room  for  corporate  associa- 
tion at  all ;  and,  as  a  matter  of  fact,  that  is  the  great 
weakness  of  Congregationalism.  To  me  religion  was 
now  mainly  a  matter  of  the  individual  culture  of  the 
spiritual  life  and,  as  a  direct  consequence  thereof,  the 
voluntary  association  of  spiritually-minded  persons  in 
Christian  fellowship  and  acts  of  worship.  But  as  my 
preaching  had  not  the  evangelistic  note  it  was  viewed 
with  some  amount  of  distrust  by  thoroughgoing 
evangelicals,  my  evangelicalism  consisting  chiefly  in 
devotional  fervor.  What  evangelicals  missed,  I 
think,  in  my  way  of  putting  things  was  certain 
phrases  to  which  they  were  and  are  accustomed  to 
attach  considerable  importance,  such  as  frequent  ref- 
erences to  conversion,  the  blood  of  Christ,  and  the 
like.    I  seldom  made  use  of  such  expressions. 

My  student  habits  I  retained  as  far  as  was  possi- 
ble to  a  busy  minister,  and  being  at  all  times  an  in- 
veterate book-lover,  I  gradually  amassed  a  library  of 
some  few  thousand  volumes.  I  had  a  system  of  read- 
ing which  Sir  William  Robertson  Nicoll  once  humor- 
ously said  it  gave  him  a  shudder  to  look  at,  but  I 
have  adhered  to  it  more  or  less  throughout  my  adult 
life.  Following  a  definite  order,  I  kept  a  number  of 
large,  leather-bound,  indexed  ledger  notebooks  on  my 
shelves,  divided  into  subjects,  and  into  these  I  used 
to  enter  week  by  week  the  results  of  my  reading  and 
reflection.  Small,  thin,  black  notebooks  were  my  in- 
separable companions  during  the  reading  itself,  and 
still  are;  I  am  never  without  them;  I  have  filled  thou- 


MINISTRY  IN  BRIGHTON  83 


sands  of  them;  it  is  second  nature  to  me  to  have  one 
always  at  hand  when  reading  anything  whatever,  not 
necessarily  to  copy  passages  into  it,  but  to  record  my 
own  comments  on  what  is  read.  I  recommend  the 
method  to  young  men ;  it  is  not  much  trouble,  and  has 
the  merit  of  giving  the  reader  a  mastery  of  what  he 
reads.  What  Dr.  Nicoll,  as  he  then  was,  meant  by 
saying  it  gave  him  a  shudder  to  investigate  it  was 
that  he  thought  it  too  slavish,  but  it  was  not  so.  His 
own  method  appeared  to  be  to  read  what  interested 
him  and  nothing  else,  of  course  discursively,  and  to 
rely  upon  a  prodigious  memory  afterwards.  I  am 
afraid  that  would  not  pay,  generally  speaking,  if  a 
minister  was  desirous  to  acquire  a  working  knowl- 
edge of  the  best  books  requisite  for  his  mental  equip- 
ment as  preacher  and  teacher. 

It  is  interesting  to  me  to  turn  anew  to  these  old 
ledgers  of  mine  and  retrace  the  course  of  my  study 
in  the  various  departments  of  human  thought  and 
experience  in  which  it  was  desirable  for  a  preacher 
to  be  informed.  To  take  philosophy  first,  I  should 
remark  that  while  I  have  never  professed  an  expert 
acquaintance  with  this  great  subject,  the  course  of 
my  mental  activities  lying  chiefly  in  other  directions, 
I  felt  it  my  duty  to  obtain  a  sufficiently  adequate 
knowledge  of  the  history  of  thought  to  enable  me  to 
place  and  form  a  judgment  upon  modern  systems  of 
belief  and  practice.  I  had  a  penchant  for  philosophy, 
and  might  have  done  something  in  it  had  the  condi- 
tions of  my  lot  made  that  way.  I  was  not  without 
some  introduction  to  it  before  going  to  Brighton.  As 


84       A  SPIRITUAL  PILGRIMAGE 


part  of  my  honor  degree  course  in  History  and  Politi- 
cal Science  I  had  to  work  through  a  good  deal  of 
Plato  and  Aristotle.  Descartes  and  Locke  came 
within  my  purview  at  this  time  also,  together  with 
Pascal,  in  whom  I  have  ever  since  retained  a  certain 
interest  from  the  psychological  as  well  as  the  religious 
point  of  view.  Kant  I  did  not  touch  till  later,  nor  in- 
deed did  I  then  know  much  about  modern  thinkers. 
Anything  like  serious  and  detailed  philosophical 
study  was  necessarily  out  of  the  question  while  read- 
ing for  honors  in  another  school;  it  only  came  in,  as 
it  were,  as  subsidiary  to  my  main  work  for  my  degree. 
But  I  did  manage  to  familiarize  myself  more  or  less 
with  the  greater  Greeks  and  their  pioneer  work  for 
the  world  in  envisaging  the  problem  of  problems,  man 
himself  and  the  why  and  wherefore  of  his  existence 
here  on  earth.  If  it  be  true  that  every  man  is  born 
either  a  Platonist  or  an  Aristotelian,  my  affinities  un- 
questionably have  always  been  with  the  former. 

Soon  after  leaving  Oxford  I  made  the  acquaintance 
of  my  distinguished  namesake,  the  late  Professor 
Lewis  Campbell  who  happened  to  be  staying  in 
Brighton,  and  I  read  with  close  interest  his  Religion 
in  Greek  Literature,  which  he  presented  to  me  as  a 
souvenir,  and  which  I  believe  still  holds  an  important 
place  amongst  the  principal  authorities  in  a  field 
which  has  yet  to  be  largely  worked.  It  helped  to 
bring  into  proportion  for  me  the  religious  bearing  of 
the  work  I  had  been  doing  at  Oxford  in  Platonism 
and  its  adjuncts.  It  gave  me  a  conspectus  of  the 
ground  covered  by  the  Greek  mind,  so  to  speak, 


MINISTRY  IN  BRIGHTON  85 


viewed  from  the  Christian  standpoint,  although  it  was 
not  a  philosophical  treatise  and  did  not  pretend  to  be 
such. 

In  modern  philosophy  I  began  with  Edward  Caird, 
who  succeeded  Jowett  as  Master  of  Balliol  during 
my  time  at  Oxford.  His  Evolution  of  Religion,  pub- 
lished about  that  period,  and  his  earlier  essays  suf- 
ficed me  for  some  years  after  the  commencement  of 
my  Brighton  ministry  as  the  basis  of  such  theology 
as  I  had,  a  fact  which  may  be  noted  by  any  who  have 
acquainted  themselves  with  my  first  published  book 
of  sermons,  A  Faith  for  Today.  These  sermons, 
preached  in  1899  and  issued  in  1900,  were  intended 
as  suggestions  towards  a  system  of  Christian  doc- 
trine, and  they  exhibit  quite  clearly  the  traces  of 
the  Neo-Hegelian  influence  under  which  they  were 
evolved.  Caird  inherited  from  Jowett  his  Hegelian 
sympathies,  but  I  do  not  know  enough  of  Jowett's 
mind  to  be  able  to  say  how  far  the  pupil  was  inde- 
pendent of  the  master  in  his  attempt  to  harmonize 
Hegel  and  Kant.  I  have  always  thought  him  very 
suggestive  and  gifted  with  a  clear  though  uninspiring 
style.  Jowett's  more  remarkable  pupil,  T.  H.  Green, 
I  never  knew.  He  was  before  my  time  at  Oxford, 
and  it  is  to  my  loss  that  I  never  had  the  opportunity 
of  sitting  at  his  feet.  In  later  days  I  made  acquaint- 
ance with  his  system  through  that  of  Bradley,  whereas 
it  should  have  been  the  other  way  round.  I  read 
Appearance  and  Reality  first,  and  the  Prolegomena 
to  Ethics  afterwards.  Before  going  up  to  Oxford, 
through  the  influence  of  a  friend  with  whom  I  was 


86       A  SPIRITUAL  PILGRIMAGE 


reading,  I  had  attempted  to  wade  through  Herbert 
Spencer's  System  of  Synthetic  Philosophy.  We 
stuck  to  it  for  about  eighteen  months  concurrently 
with  other  work,  and  mastered  the  First  Principles 
pretty  thoroughly,  together  with  the  Principles  of 
Psychology,  the  Study  of  Sociology,  and  the  Data  of 
Ethics,  though  I  should  not  like  to  be  called  upon  to 
pass  an  examination  in  any  of  it  now.  My  companion 
was  an  enthusiastic  Spencerian,  but  I  was  not  and 
never  have  been.  At  a  much  later  period — in  fact, 
just  about  the  time  of  my  coming  to  the  City  Temple 
— Professor  James  Ward's  Gifford  Lectures  on  Nat- 
uralism and  Agnosticism  came  into  my  hands  and 
blew  to  pieces  whatever  lingering  remnants  of  Spen- 
cer's theories  may  have  remained  with  me.  His  criti- 
cisms, not  only  of  Spencer's  positions,  but  of  those  of 
Huxley  and  Tyndall,  were  both  severe  and  contemp- 
tuous, and,  I  should  think,  about  ten  years  too  late. 
But  what  interested  me  most  in  this  remarkable  work 
was  its  respectful  treatment  of  Spiritualistic  Monism. 
The  author  admitted  that  for  philosophy  a  satisfac- 
tory monism  was  still  to  seek,  but  he  urged  that  ag- 
nostic monism  must  either  fall  back  into  crass  mate- 
rialism or  advance  to  spiritualism,  of  which,  indeed, 
Huxley  himself  appeared  to  be  fully  conscious  and 
leaned  towards  the  latter  alternative.  This,  if  I  may 
venture  to  say  so,  confirmed  my  own  impressions  of 
years  before,  and  I  was  glad  tojsee  it  advanced  on 
such  high  authority.  Agnosticism  made  no  appeal  to 
me  in  my  Oxford  days  or  earlier,  for  I  felt  then,  as  I 
feel  now,  that  Plato's  "instinct  for  reality,"  which 


MINISTRY  IN  BRIGHTON  87 


is  the  very  foundation  of  religious  experience,  had 
nothing  corresponding  to  it  in  Spencer's  philosophy 
of  the  Unknowable.  In  other  words,  what  was  most 
vital  to  my  own  experience  had  no  foothold  in  his 
system  and  no  explanation.  Ward  showed  me  why, 
and  left  me  with  a  still  stronger  bias  towards  a  mo- 
nistic view  of  the  relations  of  individual  self-conscious 
being  to  the  universal,  spiritually  construed. 

In  Spinoza  I  found  considerably  more  to  feed  the 
religious  sense  than  in  Spencer,  and  a  great  deal  that 
accorded  with  my  own  predilections,  much  to  the  hor- 
ror of  Canon  Hastings  Rashdall  to  whom  I  once  con- 
fessed it.  He  and  I  were  pitted  against  each  other 
in  a  private  discussion  which  took  place  before  an 
assembly  of  clergy  with  Dean  Fremantle  in  the 
chair.  The  subject,  I  believe,  was  that  of  "the 
philosophical  basis  of  the  mystical  consciousness,"  or 
something  of  the  kind,  and  I  remember  saying  in  the 
course  of  my  reply  to  Dr.  Hastings  Rashdall  that  my 
type  of  liberalism  had  more  affinities  with  Spinoza 
than  with  Hegel,  though  it  had  begun  with  the  former. 
This  struck  him  as  a  most  perilous  admission  to  make 
and  one  fraught  with  consequences  which  he  did  not 
think  were  obvious  to  myself,  such  as  the  destructive 
effect  of  Spinozism  upon  Christian  morality.  I  have 
but  little  time  to  go  back  to  the  study  of  Spinoza 
now,  but  I  should  think  there  is  much  truth  in  this 
observation.  The  dhe  great  danger  which  haunts  all 
monistic  systems,  be  they  materialistic  or  spiritualis- 
tic, is  that  of  a  weakening  of  the  moral  appeal :  I  see 
no  escape  from  it.  Nevertheless  I  should  here  record 


88       A  SPIRITUAL  PILGRIMAGE 


that  my  old  friend,  James  Allanson  Picton,  formerly 
a  Congregational  minister  and  afterwards  member  of 
Parliament  for  Leicester,  and  in  his  prime  a  notable 
Nonconformist  personality,  was  a  convinced  and  ear- 
nest Spinozist,  and  at  the  same  time  one  of  the 
strongest  moral  forces  I  have  ever  known.  His  Reli- 
gion of  the  Universe  was  an  application  of  Spinozism 
to  modern  conditions  and  deserves  to  be  better  known 
than  it  is.  In  it  he  insists  on  the  definite  reality  of 
conscience  and  moral  obligation,  while  admitting  the 
insoluble  difficulty  of  assuming  "disturbed  moral  re- 
lations in  the  system  of  a  perfect  Whole."  1  Often 
have  I  heard  him  say,  "Be  your  philosophy  what  it 
may,  moral  relations  remain  just  the  same."  In  per- 
sonal appearance  he  was  something  like  Ruskin  and 
was  very  similar  in  temperament.  He  had  all  Rus- 
kin's  capacity  for  moral  indignation,  and  was  himself 
austerely  conscientious  in  his  private  life.  He  was 
accustomed  to  maintain  of  Spinoza  that  that  "God- 
intoxicated  man"  had  not  yet  come  into  his  own. 
Certainly  if  Spinoza's  own  life  is  a  criterion  of  the 
results  of  his  philosophy  it  is  a  high  testimonial,  for 
probably  a  purer,  humbler,  braver,  or  more  charitable 
soul  never  lived. 

Berkeley's  Idealism  took  me  a  certain  way.  I 
never  could  have  been  classified  as  a  Spinozist,  and 
would  have  been  unwilling  to  be  so  designated.  Mr. 
Picton  knew  this,  and  on  one  occasion  very  generously 
defended  me  in  the  press  from  the  charge  of  panthe- 
ism.  But  a  Berkeleian  I  more  nearly  was.    I  read 

1  Religion  and  the  Universe,  p.  191. 


MINISTRY  IN  BRIGHTON  89 


Berkeley  out  of  his  due  chronological  order,  following 
Caird,  and  found  much  in  his  system  to  appeal  to  me, 
even  to  the  extent  of  making  the  jump  which  it  com- 
pels one  to  make  from  the  experience  of  the  individual 
to  the  admission  that  there  must  be  other  experiences 
like  it;  a  consistent  idealism  is  impossible.  Kant, 
the  great  epoch  maker  in  the  thought  of  the  modern 
world,  made  that  clear  to  me  once  for  all.  I  read  the 
Kritik  in  1899,  teaching  it  at  the  same  time  to  a  class 
of  young  people.  It  was  not  until  I  became  familiar 
with  the  work  of  Professor  (now  Sir  Henry)  Jones 
that  I  met  what  really  satisfied  me  under  this  head. 
His  Idealism  as  a  Practical  Creed  still  appears  to  me 
to  be  the  best  treatise  of  its  kind  existing,  and  a 
wholesome  corrective  to  Bradley  in  more  ways  than 
one.  It  is  as  full  of  spirituality  as  any  definitely  reli- 
gious book,  and  more  than  most.  It  did  not  appear 
until  1909,  but  may  very  well  be  included  here.  For 
some  time  previous  I  had  been  getting  beyond  the 
Neo-Hegelianism  of  Caird,  though  without  repudiat- 
ing my  indebtedness  to  it.  It  rationalized  the  Logos 
doctrine  for  me,  and  supplied  me  with  a  view  of  the 
purpose  of  creation  which  as  a  working  hypothesis 
seem  to  fit  the  facts  of  experience  better  than  any 
other.  Where  it  fails,  I  think,  is  in  its  soteriology, 
but  this  is  not  the  place  in  which  to  criticize  it  even 
if  there  were  need  to  do  so,  which  there  is  not.  It  is 
as  the  father  of  the  pragmatists  that  I  have  since 
learned  to  look  to  T.  H.  Green,  though  I  have  no 
doubt  he  would  have  repudiated  that  designation  had 
he  lived  long  enough  to  have  it  thrust  upon  him. 


90       A  SPIRITUAL  PILGRIMAGE 


The  method  of  Professors  William  James  and  F.  C. 
S.  Schiller  is  nothing  but  a  reaction  against  the  at- 
tempts of  the  idealists  to  define  the  nature  of  the 
Absolute.  Professor  James  held  this  to  be  unduly 
speculative,  and  maintained  that  we  have  to  confine 
ourselves  to  working  values  in  religion  as  in  every- 
thing else,  that  there  is,  in  fact,  an  irreconcilable  oppo- 
sition between  knowledge  and  faith. 

To  Professor  James's  writings  I  am  greatly  in- 
debted, not  because  I  accept  his  conclusions,  or  have 
ever  done  so,  but  because  of  the  clearness  of  his  criti- 
cal method.  His  charm  of  style  is  one  of  the  greatest 
secrets  of  his  influence.  I  have  read  most  that  he  has 
written,  but  perhaps  his  Will  to  Believe  and  his 
famous  Gifford  Lectures  on  Varieties  of  Religious 
Experience  I  have  found  most  useful.  The  Human- 
ism of  Professor  Schiller  has  a  similar  grace  of  style 
and  shrewdness  of  analysis,  but  surely  if  ever  a  sys- 
tem was  misnamed  it  is  this.  The  word  "humanism" 
has  been  too  long  associated  with  the  revival  of  let- 
ters and  with  literary  culture  in  general  to  be  prop- 
erly appropriated  by  a  school  of  philosophy.  I  once 
had  a  short  correspondence  with  Mr.  Schiller  concern- 
ing a  remark  I  had  made  about  his  system  in  the 
British  Weekly.  I  had  said  I  could  not  be  a  prag- 
matist,  and  his  comment  was  that  if  there  were  a 
pragmatist  on  earth  I  was  the  man.  I  still  think  I 
was  right  in  the  sense  in  which  I  used  the  words. 
Pragmatism  is  more  a  method  than  a  system;  from 
the  point  of  view  of  method  only,  we  are  all  more  or 
less  pragmatists.    But  the  originators  of  the  name 


MINISTRY  IN  BRIGHTON  91 


profess  to  do  more  than  elaborate  a  method,  they  do 
outline  a  system;  and  their  system  in  my  judgment 
is  not  one  which  is  likely  to  help  the  truly  religious 
mind  very  far.  With  Professor  James's  "multiverse" 
theory  nothing  would  induce  me  to  have  anything  to 
do ;  the  human  mind  can  never  rest  in  the  contempla- 
tion of  anything  short  of  the  absolute  unity  that  un- 
derlies all  existence.  On  any  other  postulate  what 
becomes  of  thought  itself?  How  can  mind  reflect 
upon  an  order  which  is  not  an  order,  or  rather  upon 
a  whole  which  is  not  a  whole  but  a  perhaps  incoherent 
multiplicity?  A  fundamental  act  of  faith  is  needed 
for  any  effective  thought  upon  the  nature  of  things, 
and  that  is  that  the  very  constitution  of  the  mind 
corresponds  to  the  constitution  of  the  universe.  We 
can  think  at  all  only  because  the  whole  of  which  we 
are  parts  is  not  chaos  but  cosmos.1 

But  I  must  not  wander  off  into  obiter  dicta  upon 
this  or  that  specific  contribution  to  humanity's  sus- 
tained effort  to  understand  itself  and  its  world.  I 
am  only  concerned  to  trace  my  own  footsteps  on  the 
road  I  have  traveled  up  to  the  present.  It  will  be 
noted  that  of  scholastic  philosophy  I  knew  nothing 
beyond  what  was  necessary  for  threading  my  way 
through  the  intricacies  of  the  medieval  disputations 

1  My  only  justification  for  passing  the  above  jejune  criticism 
is  that  it  indicates  the  opposition  of  my  mind  to  pluralism  at  that 
period  and  subsequently.  My  attitude  is  much  the  same  today. 
Needless  to  say,  I  am  not  presumptuous  enough  to  suppose  that 
this  is  an  adequate  examination  of  the  subject.  It  does  no  more 
than  illustrate  where  I  stood. 


92       A  SPIRITUAL  PILGRIMAGE 


of  Nominalists  and  Realists  in  the  course  of  my  his- 
torical studies.  I  have  forgotten  most  of  it  now.  It 
is  only  of  comparatively  recent  date  that  I  have  seri- 
ously begun  the  Summa  of  St.  Thomas  Aquinas.  I 
find  it  as  fascinating  as  it  is  massive,  the  counterpart 
of  the  thirteenth-century  Gothic  cathedral  as  it  has 
often  been  described.  But  as  Rome  is  committed  to 
it,  one  can  see  that  this  fact  alone  constitutes  a  suffi- 
cient reason  why  that  great  Church  must  remain  aloof 
from  the  modern  habit  of  mind  and  all  it  implies.  It 
is  a  far  cry  from  St.  Thomas  to  Bergson,  though  not 
so  far  from  Duns  Scotus  to  Henry  Jones. 

Newman  I  have  always  read  with  mingled  delight 
and  repulsion.  His  Essay  on  Development  of 
Christian  Doctrine  and  his  Grammar  of  Assent  never 
appealed  to  me  beyond  their  interest  as  dialectical 
performances.  No  wonder  Rome  distrusted  him  for 
twenty  years  after  his  conversion,  however.  Those 
very  works  give  the  ordinary  Roman  case  away.  He 
was  no  ultramontane.  A  theologian  who  calmly  tells 
us  that  "formulated  dogmas  are  not  essential  to  the 
genuineness  or  perfection  of  religion  or  religious  be- 
lief" is  dangerous  to  Roman  claims,  to  say  the  least. 
In  this  connection  I  may  be  permitted  to  add  with 
what  pleasure  and  profit  I  read  Mr.  Wilfrid  Ward's 
Catholic  Life  of  Newman  when  it  came  out  a  year  or 
two  ago.  It  had  long  been  wanted,  and  throws  valua- 
ble light  upon  a  period  of  the  great  oratorian's  career 
not  hitherto  well  known  to  the  general  public.  I  read 
the  Apologia  when  at  Oxford  and  many  times  since, 
always  with  admiration,  never  with  more  than  dis- 


MINISTRY  IN  BRIGHTON  93 


criminating  approval.  I  cannot  help  thinking  that 
poor  Kingsley  has  had  less  than  justice  done  to  him 
over  the  episode  that  called  forth  that  now  classical 
piece  of  personal  justification.  Newman's  novels 
which,  like  Robert  Hugh  Benson's  long  afterwards, 
were  little  more  than  proselytizing  tracts,  and  suffered 
as  works  of  fiction  accordingly,  I  never  cared  much 
about;  they  neither  met  nor  even  exhibited  any  cog- 
nizance of  the  kind  of  difficulties  I  was  having  to  face 
at  that  time.  How  little  knowledge  the  author  ever 
had  of  Dissent,  and  how  little  sympathy  with  or  re- 
spect for  it,  is  evident  in  every  one  of  them. 

But  it  was  in  the  literature  of  mysticism  that  I 
found  what  appealed  to  me  most  at  this  period  and 
subsequently,  perhaps  too  much  so.  Plotinus  and 
the  Neoplatonists  were  my  starting  point,  but  I  read 
everything  in  this  field  that  I  could  lay  my  hands 
on.  It  answered  strongly  to  something  in  myself, 
in  my  spiritual  instincts  and  mental  and  psychical 
make-up,  which  I  confess  I  have  never  been  able  to 
get  away  from.  I  was  ever  conscious  of  a  craving  for 
a  super-intellectual  union  with  Deity,  and  in  the 
great  mystics,  and  these  only,  did  I  find  anything  like 
what  I  wanted,  boldly  and  uncompromisingly  pro- 
claimed. I  felt  it  must  be  true,  and  drank  it  in  with 
avidity.  I  do  not  mean  that  the  fantastic  develop- 
ments of  later  Neoplatonism  had  any  attraction  for 
me;  they  had  not;  but  in  Plotinus  I  found,  and  still 
find,  much  that  seems  to  me  of  the  very  essence  of 
personal  religion.  About  the  same  time — that  is,  in 
the  later  years  of  my  Brighton  ministry — I  began  to 


94       A  SPIRITUAL  PILGRIMAGE 


make  acquaintance  with  Professor  Max  Miiller's 
translations  of  the  Sacred  Books  of  the  East.  I 
know  now,  what  I  did  not  know  then,  that  these  were 
but  a  selection  of  what  was  best  worth  preserving  out 
of  piles  of  rubbish,  and  even  as  it  was  they  contained 
great  quantities  of  dreary  and  unedifying  matter. 
Still,  they  had  a  certain  charm  for  me.  Their  naive 
insistence  on  the  illusoriness  of  the  phenomenal,  and 
the  fundamental  identification  of  the  many  and  the 
One,  accorded  with  my  perceptions.  The  dangerous 
pantheistic  implications  of  this  mode  of  thought  I  did 
not  dwell  upon,  nor  yet  the  moral  torpor  it  has  proved 
itself  apt  to  induce  in  the  lands  where  it  prevails. 
Critics  may  regard  this  confession  as  accounting  for 
a  great  deal  in  my  teaching,  and  as  indicating  that 
the  latter  derived  largely  from  non- Christian  sources. 
I  admit  the  naturalness  of  that  deduction,  but  cannot 
concede  its  truth.  I  never  at  any  time  paltered  with 
the  ethical  standards  of  Christianity  in  my  utterances 
in  the  pulpit  or  out  of  it.  Nor  was  it  extra- Christian 
mysticism  that  really  influenced  me  very  far.  The 
fundamental  principle  of  mysticism  is  the  same  the 
world  over  and  in  all  ages — namely,  the  realization  of 
the  essential  oneness  of  the  soul  with  God — but  its 
pagan  phases  are  not  to  be  compared  with  the  Chris- 
tian for  richness  of  content  and  warmth  of  devotional 
feeling.  What  interested  me  in  the  fields  I  have 
named  was  to  find  how  near  to  the  Kingdom  of  God 
these  Greek  and  Hindu  thinkers  and  dreamers  came, 
how  remarkably  their  experience  approximated  to 
that  of  the  Christian  saint;  they  spoke  with  similar 


MINISTRY  IN  BRIGHTON  95 


tongue  and  told  something  of  the  same  tale.  And 
this  is  indeed  the  most  striking  thing  about  the  mys- 
tics. East  and  West,  ancient  and  modern,  Christian 
and  non-Christian,  Catholic  and  Protestant,  they  evi- 
dently tread  much  the  same  pathway  and  arrive  at 
much  the  same  view  of  the  relations  of  the  soul  with 
super-sensible  reality — surely  a  presumption  in  favor 
of  the  genuineness  of  what  they  claim  to  know,  or, 
rather,  to  have  seen.  I  saw,  or  thought  I  saw,  in  it 
the  only  effectual  counteractive  to  the  somber  but 
aggressive  materialistic  philosophy  of  the  time. 
Haeckel's  Riddle  of  the  Universe  was  being  read 
everywhere.  Young  people  were  continually  asking 
me  about  it,  and  how  it  was  to  be  met.  My  invariable 
reply  was  that  it  was  one  form  of  Monism  against 
another — the- materialistic  against  the  spiritual — and 
that  in  such  a  case  the  mystic  had  an  experience  to 
declare  which  not  all  the  pessimistic  affirmations  in 
the  world  could  do  anything  to  weaken,  much  less  de- 
stroy. The  question  was  not  so  much  whether  exist- 
ence was  a  unity  or  a  plurality,  but  what  the  nature 
of  the  unity  was  in  which  we  and  the  whole  universe, 
visible  and  invisible,  live  and  move  and  have  our 
being. 

Dean  Inge's  Bampton  Lectures  on  Christian  Mys- 
ticism, a  truly  delightful  book  and  now  the  standard 
authority  on  the  general  subject  for  English  readers, 
introduced  me  to  a  literature  in  which  I  have  found 
much  joy  as  well  as  profit.  Under  his  guidance  I 
read  assiduously  in  the  works  of  the  great  Christian 
mystics.    I  had  already  begun  it  with  Du  Prel's 


96       A  SPIRITUAL  PILGRIMAGE 


Philosophy  of  Mysticism,  but  it  is  to  him  that  I  am 
indebted  for  being  able  to  do  it  more  systematically. 
I  turned  afresh  to  St.  Augustine  as  mystic  rather 
than  theologian,  and  learned  to  understand  with  truer 
insight  the  influence  of  his  Neoplatonism  upon  his 
later  Christian  life.  For  that  matter,  his  Manichseism 
is  easily  traceable  in  his  theology,  but  that  did  not 
concern  me  just  then.  Augustine  the  theologian  re- 
pelled me  as  much  as  Augustine  the  mystic  attracted 
me.  Perhaps  my  hatred  of  Calvinism,  of  which  he  was 
the  fons  et  origo,  made  me  do  him  less  than  justice  in 
this  respect.  The  fourteenth-century  Friends  of  God 
were  a  gold  mine  to  me.  Eckhart  I  have  never  fully 
managed  to  grasp,  it  is  true,  but  Tauler's  sermons  and 
the  Theologia  Germanica  were  a  veritable  treasure 
trove  to  me,  and  always  will  be.  I  have  to  thank 
Dean  Inge,  too,  for  putting  me  on  the  track  of  dear 
Mother  Julian  of  Norwich,  whose  Revelations  of  Di- 
vine Love  are  a  scheme  of  philosophy  as  well  as  an 
exceedingly  beautiful  type  of  spiritual  testimony, 
though  doubtless  the  last  thing  in  the  mind  of  the 
devout  anchoress  was  to  do  any  philosophizing. 
Richard  Rolle  and  George  Fox  come  a  long  way  sec- 
ond in  my  estimation.  Jacob  Benmen  I  found  diffi- 
cult and  involved,  but  full  of  beauty  and  suggestive- 
ness  when  I  could  understand  him.  But  it  was  al- 
ways Catholic  saintship  that  spoke  most  directly  to 
my  heart.  St.  Bernard's  prose  works,  St.  Francis  of 
Assisi,  St.  Francis  de  Sales,  St.  John  of  the  Cross 
and  his  great  fellow-mystic  Teresa  of  Jesus,  the  two 
Catherines  of  Genoa  and  Siena,  Madame  Guyon  and 


MINISTRY  IN  BRIGHTON  97 


her  friend  and  fellow-sufferer,  Fenelon,  allowing  for 
the  extravagances  of  the  former  of  the  two  last-named, 
have  all  contributed  in  their  several  degrees  to  my 
religious  life.  My  spirit  knows  no  greater  solace  to 
this  day  than  to  kneel  with  them  before  the  world's 
Redeemer  and  adore  the  goodness  of  God. 

Here  was  the  soil  in  which  my  Monism  grew.  Care- 
fully as  the  Catholic  mystics  maintain  their  ortho- 
doxy, there  can  be  no  doubt,  I  think,  that  their  lan- 
guage implies  a  view  of  the  relations  of  the  soul  with 
God  which  transcends  the  limits  of  personality  as 
ordinarily  understood.  Ecstasy,  in  so  far  as  it  is  de- 
scribable  at  all,  is  the  temporary  attainment  of  a  state 
of  consciousness  for  which  no  analogy  exists  in  the 
intercourse  of  one  human  soul  with  another.  Bounds 
are  broken  through,  separateness  disappears,  life  is 
immeasurably  enhanced  and  glorified;  and,  without 
ceasing  to  be  itself,  the  soul  becomes  ineffably  and 
mysteriously  one  with  that  which  is  the  ground  of  all 
being,  that  which  is  as  opposed  to  all  that  merely 
seems.  Here  I  am,  and  here  I  rest.  This  is  the 
background  of  my  faith,  the  very  sap  and  essence  of 
it.  Whatever  else  may  have  to  be  added  by  way  of 
qualification  or  safeguard,  this  must  remain.  To 
abandon  it  would  be  to  cease  to  be  myself  or  to  know 
the  love  that  passeth  knowledge  and  the  truth  that 
makes  free. 


CHAPTER  V 

MINISTRY  IN  BRIGHTON  (Continued) 

My  theology  during  this  period  may  be  gathered 
from  my  book  of  sermons  already  mentioned,  A  Faith 
for  Today.  It  differs  from  the  New  Theology  of 
seven  years  later  mainly  in  the  fact  that  the  monistic 
basis  thereof  is  not  yet  explicit.  It  has  much  the 
same  negative  view  of  evil,  which  after  all  is  Augus- 
tinian,  and  the  same  theory  of  creation  as  a  mode  of 
the  self-expression  of  God.  The  Neo-Hegelian  origin 
of  this  idea  has  been  noted  above.  I  still  cannot  see 
that  there  is  much  the  matter  with  it.  But  it  is 
stronger  on  sin  and  the  Atonement  than  the  later 
volume,  and  is  content  to  leave  the  latter  a  mystery. 
On  the  person  of  Christ  it  is  orthodox  as  far  as  it  goes. 
It  distinguishes  between  moral  and  cosmical  evil,  at- 
tributing the  former  to  man  without  saying  how,  and 
the  latter  to  God.  It  shows  too,  as  I  think,  quite 
clearly,  that  moral  consciousness  only  emerges  in  the 
conflict  between  desire  and  duty,  and  that  the  condi- 
tions which  give  rise  to  this  conflict  are  not  of  our  mak- 
ing but  of  divine  ordinance.  The  doctrine  of  the  Fall 
is  cursorily  dealt  with  and  treated  psychologically 
rather  than  historically.  My  attitude  to  the  question 
of  miracle  was  less  respectful  then  than  now;  I  was 

98 


MINISTRY  IN  BRIGHTON  99 


much  under  the  influence  of  the  rationalizing  gospel 
criticism  of  the  latter  half  of  the  nineteenth  century. 

In  dogmatics  at  this  time  I  read  widely,  but  not  to 
any  great  profit.  Principal  Fairbairn's  Place  of 
Christ  in  Modem  Theology  I  felt  to  be  a  remarkable 
compendium  of  profound  learning  without  much 
that  was  truly  illuminating  in  its  whole  bulk,  a  judg- 
ment I  have  seen  no  reason  to  alter.  His  Studies  in 
the  Life  of  Christ,  a  much  earlier  work,  was  far  more 
helpful  to  a  preacher,  though  since  largely  super- 
seded by  the  progress  of  New  Testament  criticism. 
His  Philosophy  of  the  Christian  Religion,  which  ap- 
peared in  1902,  attracted  me  more  than  either,  partly 
because  its  style  was  so  much  less  irritating — his  pre- 
vious works  suffered  from  a  habit  of  antithesis  which 
he  developed  to  excess,  giving  the  reader,  as  it  were, 
a  box  on  one  ear  with  the  right  hand  and  then  on  the 
other  with  the  left,  a  method  which  is  apt  to  pall 
when  continued  through  chapter  after  chapter.  In 
this  book  the  antithesis  was  much  less  prominent.  But 
my  chief  interest  in  it  was  that  I  wanted  to  see  how 
to  relate  to  theology  the  philosophical  standpoint  at 
which  I  was  arriving.  And  this,  I  am  afraid,  I  did 
not  find.  Like  the  rest  of  Dr.  Fairbairn's  massive 
work,  his  Philosophy  of  the  Christian  Religion  was 
piling  Pelion  upon  Ossa  without  striking  any  fire  out 
of  them.  His  mind  was  essentially  of  the  acquisitive, 
not  the  creative  order.  There  was  little  in  his  treatises 
specifically  addressed  to  the  mind  of  the  age  or  that 
had  not  been  said  a  thousand  times  before;  the  beaten 
track  was  carefully  and  minutely  followed,  but  no 


100      A  SPIRITUAL  PILGRIMAGE 


fresh  pathways  were  blazed  nor  anything  suggested  to 
make  the  old  easier  to  tread.  And,  with  deep  respect 
be  it  set  down,  I  have  to  make  almost  the  same  con- 
fession about  Dr.  Dale.  Not  much  in  the  way  of 
enlightenment  did  I  ever  get  from  his  famous  book 
on  the  Atonement  or  from  his  Living  Christ  and  the 
Four  Gospels,  the  latter  the  far  more  human  book  of 
the  two  because  born  of  a  vital  experience  of  his  own. 
The  fact  is  that  distinctively  Nonconformist — or  shall 
I  say  evangelical? — theology  failed  me.  If  I  am  to 
be  blamed  for  this  I  cannot  help  it:  the  truth  is  as 
stated.  As  a  qualification  I  must  record  my  great 
indebtedness  to  some  evangelical  writers  outside  Eng- 
land. A  charmingly  written  manual  of  Christian  doc- 
trine from  the  pen  of  Dr.  Clarke  of  Colgate  Univer- 
sity, U.  S.  A.,  I  used  for  several  sessions  as  a  text- 
book for  a  lay  preachers'  class  which  I  conducted  in 
Brighton.  It  was  exactly  suited  for  the  purpose,  be- 
ing erudite  without  being  ponderous,  and  spiritual 
without  losing  anything  in  intellectual  force.  Pro- 
fessors Marcus  Dods  of  Edinburgh  and  A.  B.  Bruce 
of  Glasgow  were  a  great  inspiration  to  me.  the  latter 
especially.  Both  were  suspected  of  heresy,  not  per- 
haps without  some  justification.  In  recent  years  I 
have  come  to  find  much  to  admire  in  Dr.  Denney, 
whom  I  should  think  no  one  living  or  dead  has  ever 
thought  of  accusing  of  heresy.  But  to  the  degree 
that  I  was  able  to  derive  much  benefit  from  systematic 
theology — Biblical  criticism,  as  will  be  seen  in  due 
order,  having  made  me  somewhat  impatient  of  it — it 
was  to  Anglicanism  that  I  still  turned  most  freely, 


MINISTRY  IN  BRIGHTON  101 


not  always  for  instruction,  but  certainly  for  interest. 
Liddon's  Bampton  Lectures  on  the  Divinity  of  Our 
Lord  impressed  me  at  the  beginning  of  my  ministry, 
though  later  on  I  came  to  see  the  critical  difficulties 
they  were  unable  to  meet,  of  which  indeed  the  author 
was  quite  unconscious.  F.  W.  Robertson  then  as  now 
was  an  unfailing  stimulus:  I  have  never  outgrown 
my  love  for  him.  Dr.  Gore  I  never  ceased  to  follow 
though  afar  off,  and  now  with  a  deeper  appreciation. 
J.  R.  Illingworth  helped  me  greatly  up  to  a  point, 
especially  by  his  valuable  work  on  Divine  Immanence. 
I  happened  to  read  Moberly's  Atonement  and  Per- 
sonality about  the  same  time  as  Macleod  Campbell's 
much  older  work  on  the  same  subject.  The  latter 
captured  me,  but  the  former  opened  vistas  unseen  by 
my  Scottish  namesake.  The  fact  that  I  found  so 
much  more  in  Macleod  Campbell  than  in  Dale  may 
be  considered  another  token  of  depravity  in  me  by 
the  rigidly  orthodox,  but  I  still  have  a  great  regard 
for  him.  Amongst  transatlantic  thinkers  by  whom  I 
was  influenced  at  this  time  Horace  Bushnell  and 
Theodore  Parker  must  be  specially  mentioned.  They 
carried  me  further  along  the  path  of  a  devout  liberal- 
ism. I  can  never  be  sorry  that  I  made  the  acquaint- 
ance of  either,  albeit  their  influence  did  not  tend  to 
make  me  more  at  home  with  evangelical  orthodoxy. 
An  American  theologian  of  a  younger  generation, 
Professor  Stevens  of  Yale,  produced  a  book  about  a 
dozen  years  ago  which  has  done  much  to  clarify  my 
thought  on  the  Atonement,  namely  his  Christian  Doc- 
trine of  Salvation.  While  noting  this  I  must  not  omit 


102      A  SPIRITUAL  PILGRIMAGE 


a  reference  to  Oxenham's  Catholic  Doctrine  of  the 
Atonement,  one  of  the  sanest  and  most  lucid  accounts 
of  the  history  of  the  subject  ever  given  to  the  world. 
It  has  done  much  to  guide  me  both  in  my  earlier  and 
later  ministry.  The  author  is  one  of  the  Roman  Cath- 
olic scholars  to  whom  I  am  under  deep  obligation, 
and  was  the  first  of  them  to  make  a  permanent  im- 
pression on  my  mind.  Nothing  in  his  book  was  incon- 
sistent with  my  growing  liberalism ;  in  fact  I  thought 
at  the  time  that  it  lent  support  to  it  without  meaning 
to  do  so.  It  gave  no  solution  of  the  outstanding  prob- 
lem of  the  nature  of  the  redemption  wrought  out  for 
mankind  in  Christ;  bufr  if  I  had  had  eyes  to  see  I 
might  have  seen  that  it  demonstrated  to  the  full  the 
necessity  for  it  while  reverently  allowing  the  inner- 
most of  the  divine  sacrifice  to  remain  a  mystery,  a 
mystery  and  sacrifice  continually  renewed  in  the  sac- 
rament of  the  altar.  The  Atonement  is  fully  intel- 
ligible only  through  the  corporate  life  of  the  Church. 

It  should  be  recorded  here  that  all  through  this  part 
of  my  spiritual  history  I  read  continuously  in  the 
Fathers,  particularly  the  Alexandrians.  I  followed 
no  regular  method  in  this  branch  of  study,  but  did 
what  I  could  at  it  in  the  intervals  of  the  serious'  work 
of  more  immediate  value  in  preparation  for  my  pul- 
pit. But  I  acquired  a  good  deal  in  this  way  all  the 
same ;  it  was  a  field  of  study  for  which  I  had  a  liking, 
and  I  have  maintained  my  acquaintance  with  it  more 
or  less  ever  since.  Clement  and  Origen  were  my  fa- 
vorites, and,  as  will  be  readily  inferred,  they  did  noth- 
ing to  check  my  liberalizing  tendencies.   Tertullian  I 


MINISTRY  IN  BRIGHTON  103 


detested.  His  fierceness,  intolerance,  and  utter 
mercilessness  to  those  who  differed  from  him  were  to 
me  repellent  and  accounted  for  much  that  was  evil  in 
Latin  Christianity  in  its  after  history.  Irenaeus  I  put 
on  a  totally  different  footing  as  belonging  to  the  East 
rather  than  the  West,  though  the  best  of  his  life-work 
was  done  in  Gaul.  Tertullian's  African  compatriot, 
Cyprian,  I  had  a  profound  respect  for,  partly  because 
of  his  character  but  principally  because  of  the  firm- 
ness with  which  he  resisted  the  claims  of  the  Bishop 
of  Rome  to  universal  jurisdiction. 

But  from  the  first  day  I  began  my  work  in  Brighton 
I  began  to  submit  myself  to  the  influence  of  the  Ger- 
mans, more  especially  in  the  sphere  of  Biblical  criti- 
cism. For  fifteen  years  onward  this  was  the  source 
to  which  I  looked — far  too  faithfully — for  what  I 
was  to  think  about  the  Bible,  and  indirectly  about  the 
Gospel  too.  I  have  read  much  more  extensively  in 
this  field  than  in  any  other,  and  regret  that  I  gave  so 
much  time  to  it — that  is,  in  proportion  to  the  whole. 
With  the  foolish  things  now  being  said  about  German 
scholarship  I  have  no  sympathy.  The  men  who  are 
telling  us  that  the  war  has  put  an  end  to  any  credit  it 
ever  possessed,  and  that  the  British  clergy  who  have 
sat  at  the  feet  of  German  savants  must  be  sadly  disil- 
lusioned, are  simply  talking  nonsense.  We  may  have 
been  mistaken  in  assimilating  so  freely  what  the  Ger- 
mans have  taught  us,  but  that  does  not  do  away  with 
the  fact  that  the  debt  of  Christendom  to  them  is  great. 
Much  of  their  work  will  stand  the  test  of  time,  and 
much  will  not.   Sir  William  Ramsay  has  done  invalu- 


104     A  SPIRITUAL  PILGRIMAGE 

able  service  in  exposing  the  unsoundness  of  mere  lit- 
erary speculation  when  brought  up  against  the  evi- 
dence of  the  spade  and  mattock.  The  New  Testa- 
ment facts  are  considerably  more  trustworthy  than  a 
great  deal  of  so-called  "scientific"  criticism  of  them  has 
been  wont  to  allow.  What  I  regret  is  that  I  was  not 
more  cautious  in  accepting  the  latter.  But  the  ten- 
dency of  late  among  the  principal  authorities  them- 
selves is  to  become  more  conservative  in  their  verdicts. 
The  foremost  of  them  all,  Adolf  Harnack,  is  a  con- 
spicuous example  of  this.  When  I  recall  the  wild  ex- 
tremes to  which  some  of  the  speculations  of  twenty 
years  ago  went  I  can  but  marvel  at  my  own  docility 
under  their  bold  assertions ;  I  believe  them  too  readily, 
as  did  others.  Professor  Cheyne  must  be  credited 
with  a  certain  measure  of  responsibility  for  this  among 
English  readers.  His  Jerahmeel  theory  is  only  one 
instance  out  of  many  that  might  be  adduced  in  illus- 
tration of  his  tendency  to  erect  elaborate  superstruc- 
tures upon  the  flimsiest  foundations.  No  one  could 
call  his  scholarship  in  question,  but  his  bias  was  always 
in  the  direction  of  denying  the  historicity  of  events, 
narratives,  and  personalities  as  presented  in  scripture. 
The  plain  meaning  of  anything  was  abhorrent  to  him ; 
he  must  always  hunt  for  the  myth  of  which  it  was 
the  embodiment.  But  this  habit  became  rather  serious 
when  he  put  the  Encyclopedia  Biblica  on  the  market 
as  an  authoritative  work  of  reference  for  Bible  stu- 
dents at  large.  Such  a  comprehensive  accumulation 
of  learning  ought  to  have  contained  only  assured  crit- 
ical results,  or  at  least  have  indicated  plainly  when  the 


MINISTRY  IN  BRIGHTON  105 


individual  judgments  advanced  were  open  to  doubt, 
whereas  it  did  anything  but  that. 

Let  no  one  imagine  that  I  am  speaking  disrespect- 
fully of  Dr.  Cheyne's  contributions  to  Biblical  exege- 
sis. I  hope  I  come  second  to  none  of  his  admirers 
in  deference  to  the  scholar  as  well  as  love  for  the  man; 
I  am  but  recording  my  opinion  of  his  eff  ect  upon  my 
own  reading  in  one  great  subject,  and  I  think  upon 
that  of  many  other  young  men  too.  He  introduced 
me  to  Schmiedel,  for  example — P.  W.  Schmiedel,  I 
mean,  author  of  the  much  controverted  article  in  the 
Encyclopedia  Biblica  in  which  we  were  left  with  only 
five  gospel  sayings  which,  according  to  this  particular 
expert,  might  fairly  be  considered  authentic  and  re- 
garded as  the  foundation  pillars  for  a  really  scientific 
life  of  our  Lord.  I  read  this  writer's  later  defense 
in  which  he  pointed  out  that  he  did  not  affirm  these 
five  sayings  to  be  the  only  genuine  ones  relating  to 
Jesus,  but  the  only  ones  about  which  we  might  be 
reasonably  sure  and  from  which  a  great  deal  more 
might  be  inferred.  This  was  all  very  well,  but  it  was 
not  easy  to  say  what  more  could  be  inferred  from  a 
few  utterances  which  were  selected  as  presumably  au- 
thentic on  the  very  ground  that  they  deprecated 
supernormal  claims  on  behalf  of  the  speaker,  begin- 
ning with,  "Why  callest  thou  me  good?  none  is  good, 
save  one,  that  is,  God."  Schmiedel's  book  on  the 
Johannine  writings,  with  its  penetrating  analysis  of 
the  ingenious  use  of  symbolism  by  the  evangelist, 
formed  for  some  time  the  basis — a  false  one,  as  I  now 
perceive — of  the  distinction  I  was  accustomed  to  draw 


10G     A  SPIRITUAL  PILGRIMAGE 

between  the  latest  gospel  and  the  three  earlier  ones. 
The  work  I  have  done  on  this  subject  myself 
within  the  last  few  years  has  convinced  me  that  this 
distinction  is  less  radical  than  appears  on  the  sur- 
face. 

Harnack  never  greatly  appealed  to  me,  though  I 
read  him  carefully.  I  toiled  through  his  History  of 
Dogma  with  the  result  that  I  acquired  a  considerable 
distaste  for  the  subject,  a  distaste  which  Dr.  Gore  and 
Professor  Swete  have  since  done  a  good  deal  to  cor- 
rect. This  massive  piece  of  erudition  is  written 
throughout  from  the  liberal  Protestant  standpoint — 
unconsciously,  in  large  measure — and  this  inevitably 
misleads  the  reader  on  some  very  important  questions 
such  as  the  constitution  of  the  ministry.  The  author 
allows  too  much,  as  Dr.  Wotherspoon  has  lately  suc- 
ceeded in  showing,  for  the  early  predominance  of  the 
charismatic  over  the  presbyteral  ministry.  It  would  be 
truer  to  say  that  this  is  the  view  advanced  in  his  Ex- 
pansion of  Christianity  than  in  the  earlier  work,  but  it 
receives  prominence  in  both.  His  What  is  Christian- 
ity? left  but  little  of  Christianity  as  a  Catholic,  or 
even  an  earnest  evangelical,  would  understand  it. 
And  here  let  me  remark  upon  one  thing  which  has 
never  ceased  to  be  a  puzzle  to  me.  All  these  products 
of  the  prodigious  learning  of  the  eminent  Berlin 
theologian  have  been  extravagantly  praised  by  the 
most  orthodox  theologians  of  this  country;  the  same 
would  apply  to  far  less  conservative  writers  than  Pro- 
fessor Harnack;  but  what  for  the  life  of  me  I  cannot 
understand  is  how  these  British  reviewers  could  be 


MINISTRY  IN  BRIGHTON  107 


so  apparently  satisfied  with  the  kind  of  gospel  they 
commended.  The  gospel  of  German  liberal  Protes- 
tantism as  a  whole,  Harnack's  not  excluded,  ration- 
alizes everything.  Even  when  it  does  not  explicitly 
say  so  it  tacitly  assumes  the  all-embracing  humanity 
of  our  Lord — that  is,  it  puts  Him  in  the  same  category 
as  other  great  religious  masters.  It  leaves  no  room 
for  mystery,  none  for  the  supernatural,  little  or  noth- 
ing for  the  miraculous  in  any  sphere. 

Concurrently  with  Harnack  I  was  reading  two 
Frenchmen  with  much  appreciation — J.  Reville  and 
Auguste  Sabatier.  The  beautiful  style  of  the  latter 
made  reading  a  delight,  and  perhaps  blinded  one  to 
his  sophisms.  His  Religions  of  Authority  and  the 
Religion  of  the  Spirit  had  a  profound  influence  upon 
my  mind.  I  still  believe  it  to  be  as  succinct  and  lucid 
a  statement  as  can  be  found  of  the  only  consistent 
alternative  to  the  Catholic  position  on  the  vital  sub- 
ject with  which  it  deals.  The  same  author's  Philoso- 
phy of  Religion,  which  I  read  first,  is  more  fascinat- 
ing than  a  good  novel,  and  full  of  suggestiveness. 
There  is  no  corresponding  lightness  of  touch  in  any 
German  writer  of  my  acquaintance.  Reville's  Liberal 
Christianity,  not  a  very  large  book,  gave  me  an  in- 
sight into  a  phase  of  continental  religion  of  which  I 
had  hitherto  known  nothing. 

Other  German  writers  who  influenced  me  much  in 
my  Brighton  days  were  Weiss  and  Beyschlag  on  the 
life  and  teaching  of  our  Lord.  I  have  gone  back  to 
them  of  late  in  connection  with  the  special  piece  of 
work  I  am  doing  in  this  field,  and  find  it  curious  to 


108      A  SPIRITUAL  PILGRIMAGE 


note  how  the  emphases  of  criticism  have  changed  and 
how  little  the  portrait  of  the  Master  as  limned  by 
these  scholars  can  stand  the  test  of  the  skepticism  of 
Schweitzer  and  his  school.  Friedrich  Delitzsch  on  the 
Babel-Bible  issue  interested  me  greatly,  and  with  rea- 
son; the  work  he  did  has  never  been  undone.  Otto 
Pfleiderer  did  me  some  harm ;  his  tendency  to  explain 
away  everything  supernatural  by  means  of  exceed- 
ingly questionable  parallels  derived  from  extra-Chris- 
tian sources  bothered  me  for  a  time,  but  I  eventually 
broke  free  from  it  as  from  all  anti-supernaturalism. 
Upon  one  point  I  have  become  finally  and  absolutely 
satisfied  by  rigorous  experiment :  Christianity  cannot 
be  rationalized.  What  is  most  valuable  in  the  revela- 
tion it  brings  and  the  benefit  it  affords  is  super- 
rational,  hence  its  power. 

Bousset's  Jesus  belongs  to  this  period  of  my  mental 
acquisitions,  as  also  the  much  earlier  and  more  famous 
treatises  of  Strauss  and  Renan,  together  with  Seeley's 
Ecce  Homo.  I  was  quite  conscious  of  their  charm 
and  force  without  entirely  yielding  to  either.  As 
most  of  those  acquainted  with  my  ministry  would  be 
willing  to  admit,  I  never  did  wholly  succumb  to 
purely  naturalistic  explanations  of  the  words  and 
works  of  Him  who  is  for  all  ages  the  Light  of  the 
World.  I  was  glad  to  have  Him  humanized  and  made 
as  vivid  and  alluring  as  possible  to  my  devout  appre- 
hension without  being  in  any  degree  a  figure  less 
commanding,  mysterious,  and  divine.  Strauss's  revo- 
lutionary book  has  stood  the  test  of  time  better  than 
Renan's,  so  far  as  the  scientific  character  of  its  literary 


MINISTRY  IN  BRIGHTON  109 


judgments  is  concerned,  though  doubtless  Renan  will 
always  be  the  more  extensively  read. 

It  might  have  been  expected  that  I  would  have 
familiarized  myself  with  the  important  contributions 
of  Ferdinand  Christian  Baur  and  his  contemporaries 
to  scientific  theology,  but  I  did  not.  Nor  did  I  do  more 
than  read  English  summaries  of  Ritschlianism.  Prob- 
ably I  have  lost  by  this  omission,  but  I  cannot  spare 
time  to  make  up  for  it  now,  more  especially  as  the 
principal  theories  put  forward  by  these  have  been 
argued  and  re-argued,  qualified  and  rejected  by  so 
many  successive  schools.  We  all  know  fairly  well 
where  to  place  them. 

The  above  is  but  a  meager  list  of  the  authors  who 
have  influenced  me  more  or  less,  especially  during  my 
Brighton  and  earlier  London  period.  It  indicates 
something  of  the  equipment  with  which  my  London 
ministry  began  and  the  direction  in  which  I  was  trav- 
eling. But  a  number  of  other  writers  might  be  named 
to  whom  I  am  under  obligation,  were  it  not  for  the 
necessity  of  confining  myself  strictly  to  the  task  of 
showing  what  were  the  main  lines  on  which  my 
thought  developed  and  what  were  the  principal  guide- 
posts  en  route.  I  have  omitted  much  of  what  consti- 
tuted in  the  last  few  years  of  my  Brighton  work  the 
main  course  of  my  study,  namely  Old  and  New  Testa- 
ment exegesis.  I  read  hard  and  conscientiously  in 
this  field,  and  think  I  may  fairly  claim  to  know  it 
pretty  thoroughly.  There  is  not  much  that  is  really 
important  in  the  way  of  Biblical  scholarship  that  I 
have  missed.    I  ought  certainly  to  acknowledge  my 


110      A  SPIRITUAL  PILGRIMAGE 


indebtedness  to  Professors  Driver  and  Sanday  here. 
Both  have  been  good  enough  to  correspond  with  me 
on  occasion  in  regard  to  particular  points  on  which 
opinion  was  divided.  The  works  of  Principal  George 
Adam  Smith  of  Aberdeen  University  were  amongst 
the  earliest  which  helped  me  in  acquiring  an  acquaint- 
ance with  Old  Testament  criticism,  and  I  know  none 
better  for  a  preacher. 

It  was  about  this  time,  also,  that  I  began  to  make 
acquaintance  with  Roman  Catholic  and  Anglican 
Modernism.  The  two  are  quite  distinct,  but  were 
more  in  touch  a  few  years  ago  than  most  people  were 
aware.  Father  Tyrrell  came  to  see  me  once  or  twice, 
once  at  least  in  the  company  of  an  Anglican  theolo- 
gian of  liberal  views  whose  sympathy  with  and 
knowledge  of  the  Roman  movement  was  wide  and 
accurate.  Some  of  the  Italian  modernists  of  their 
own  accord  began  to  write  to  me,  and  we  corresponded 
freely  for  a  time.  With  one  or  two  of  them  I  am 
still  on  intimate  terms.  The  movement  appeared  to 
me  full  of  promise  and  I  was  greatly  attracted  by  it. 
It  led  me  to  pay  more  attention  to  the  inner  life  of 
the  Church  of  Rome  than  I  had  hitherto  done,  though 
it  was  not  for  some  time  yet  that  I  took  up  the  matter 
systematically.  I  wondered  whether  that  venerable 
communion  were  about  to  renew  its  youth,  as  did 
many  more  throughout  the  world.  One  thing  puzzled 
me,  and  that  was  the  absence  of  a  common  standing 
ground  among  the  modernists  themselves  and  their 
mutual  inconsistencies,  but  as  this  was  more  or  less 
true  of  liberalism  everywhere,  and  I  judged  it  to  be 


MINISTRY  IN  BRIGHTON  111 


practically  inevitable  in  all  new  movements,  it  did 
not  trouble  me  greatly.  Pope  Pius  X,  as  we  all 
know,  pronounced  Modernism  the  synthesis  of  all 
heresies,  and  from  this  point  of  view  perhaps  he  was 
right,  though  the  encyclical  in  which  his  authoritative 
condemnation  of  it  was  contained  was  curiously  im- 
moderate in  tone  and  specious  in  argument.  Had 
the  movement  been  more  cohesive,  and  known  better 
what  it  was  aiming  at,  it  might  have  defied  suppres- 
sion; as  it  was  it  tragically  failed,  for  the  time  being 
at  any  rate. 

Tyrrell  did  not  attract  me  much  personally,  I 
hardly  knew  why.  He  was  fervid  and  sincere,  and 
the  master  of  a  style  which  alone  would  have  sufficed 
to  secure  him  a  hearing  in  any  part  of  the  globe.  But 
he  did  not  seem  to  me  to  know  well  enough  what  he 
would  be  at,  save  and  except  that  he  was  always  "agin 
the  Government"  like  so  many  of  his  compatriots  in 
another  sense.  I  question  whether  he  was  truly  a 
Roman  Catholic  at  all — I  mean  that  he  never  learned 
obedience,  which  is  of  the  very  essence  of  the  Roman 
system.  His  insubordination  was  not  of  recent  date; 
it  began  with  his  very  novitiate  in  the  Jesuit  order 
and  continued  practically  all  through  the  rest  of  his 
career.  His  valuable  services  to  liberty  of  thought 
ought  not  to  blind  us  to  this  fact.  Indeed,  now  that 
I  know  more  of  his  personal  history,  and  more  of  the 
ecclesiasticism  against  which  he  strove,  I  am  aston- 
ished at  the  patience  and  forbearance  with  which  he 
was  treated  till  quite  within  the  last  few  years  of  his 
life.  It  was,  to  say  the  least,  a  very  questionable  pro- 


112      A  SPIRITUAL  PILGRIMAGE 


ceeding  on  his  part  to  give  his  promise  not  to  write 
and  then  continue  to  do  so  under  a  pseudonym.  I 
have  been  struck,  too,  by  his  swift  changes  of  front. 
I  came  across  something  of  his  on  Lamennais  in  my 
early  ministry  which  solemnly  speculated  as  to 
whether  there  were  any  hope  of  that  eminent  icono- 
clast's ultimate  salvation,  and  almost  summed  up 
against  it.  Yet  within  a  comparatively  short  time 
Tyrrell  himself  had  outdone  Lamennais  in  his  open 
disrespect  for  authority  and  in  his  determination  to 
resist  or  evade  the  requirements  of  his  ecclesiastical 
superiors.  I  felt  this  at  the  time  I  first  got  to  know 
him,  and  have  since  been  confirmed  in  my  view  that 
there  was  a  good  deal  to  be  said  for  the  official  side  of 
the  question  when  the  issues  concerning  him  came  to  a 
head.  He  was  a  difficult  person  to  manage  or  be  sure 
of  at  any  time.  The  provincial  superior  of  the  Society 
of  Jesus  who  at  the  close  of  his  novitiate  advised  him 
not  to  take  the  vows  was  undoubtedly  right  in  his  dis- 
cernment of  Tyrrell's  tendencies,  and  almost  uncan- 
nily prescient  in  warning  him  that  he  would  be  sure 
to  give  trouble  to  the  Society  afterwards. 

Moreover,  I  do  not  think  it  could  truly  be  said  that 
Tyrrell  contributed  anything  positive  to  theology. 
His  work  was  almost  entirely  negative,  though  bril- 
liant at  that,  and  much  of  it  deadly  in  effect.  Per- 
haps this  characterization  is  hardly  fair.  It  may  be 
held,  probably  with  justice,  that  such  work  as  he  had 
opportunity  to  do  could  not  be  anything  but  critical, 
and  that  in  happier  circumstances  his  great  powers  of 
mind  would  have  found  more  congenial  occupation  in 


MINISTRY  IN  BRIGHTON  113 


constructive  thinking.  I  doubt  this,  however.  He  had 
all  the  Celtic  quickness  and  fertility  of  imagination, 
but  something  of  Celtic  instability  likewise.  He 
could  and  did  assimilate  rapidly  the  thoughts  of  oth- 
ers and  reproduce  them  with  a  glow  and  force  the 
original  did  not  possess.  But  he  was  apt  to  be  vague 
and  elusive  on  crucial  points,  and — I  may  be  wrong — 
I  think  this  was  because  he  was  not  quite  sure  of  him- 
self. This  is  illustrated  by  the  last  book  he  ever 
wrote,  which  showed  quite  clearly  that  he  had  just 
been  reading  Schweitzer  and  was  dominated  for  the 
moment  accordingly  by  eschatological  conceptions  of 
our  Lord's  earthly  ministry  and  its  outcome.  A  ques- 
tion forced  upon  the  reader's  mind  all  through,  but 
never  answered  from  the  first  page  to  the  last,  is 
whether  Tyrrell  himself  thought  our  Lord  a  deluded 
visionary  or  not.  His  words  would  almost  suggest 
that  he  did,  for  he  enters  no  protest  against  Schweit- 
zer's main  argument,  but  by  implication  adopts  it  as 
his  own.  I  have  been  given  to  understand  by  those 
who  knew  the  author  better  than  I  that  this  same  book 
was  written  partly  against  me,  and  partly  against  lib- 
eral Protestantism  in  general,  in  order  to  demonstrate 
that  Roman  Modernism  was  not  a  Protestantizing 
movement.  I  think  this  was  a  just  claim.  There  was 
a  certain  kinship  in  spirit  between  the  two,  and  I  my- 
self, like  many  others,  was  inclined  to  identify  them, 
but  Tyrrell's  book  made  me  see  that  this  could  not 
properly  be  done.  Probably  he  and  his  associates  had 
been  feeling  the  inconvenience  of  being  credited  with 
Protestant  sympathies.   I  freely  admit,  too,  that  this 


114      A  SPIRITUAL  PILGRIMAGE 


book  helped  to  show  me  the  impossibility  of  maintain- 
ing my  own  position  just  then  without  definitely  ally- 
ing myself  with  the  old,  bare,  arid  liberalism  against 
which  Newman  so  earnestly  strove.  It  never  was 
mine. 

Loisy  I  read  with  close  interest  and  appreciation, 
but  never  with  any  failure  to  perceive  the  fact  that 
he  was  an  intellectual,  not  a  spiritual  force.  I  am  not 
in  the  least  surprised  at  what  has  happened  to  him 
since;  it  was  only  what  might  have  been  expected. 
His  interests  are  entirely  on  the  intellectual  plane, 
and  it  is  on  that  plane  that  we  are  his  beneficiaries. 
His  Religion  of  Israel  and  Gospel  and  the  Church 
are  both  of  first-class  value;  the  latter  especially  I  wel- 
comed as  giving  me  a  totally  different  viewpoint  from 
that  of  Harnack  in  regard  to  the  apostolic  and  sub- 
apostolic  age.  Baron  von  Hiigel,  whose  acquaintance 
I  shortly  afterwards  made,  is  the  third  great  Roman 
Catholic  of  modernist  views  whose  writings  have  in- 
fluenced me,  and  they  still  have  a  considerable  hold 
upon  me.  He  is  to  my  mind  the  most  distinguished 
of  the  Modernist  group  in  this  country,  and  as  re- 
markable for  spiritual  force  as  for  scholarship.  The 
kind  of  Modernism  he  represents  may  be  driven  un- 
derground, but  it  can  never  perish.  Nor  is  it  aggres- 
sive and  disputatious  in  tone,  almost  the  opposite,  in 
fact.  If  the  Modernists  who  have  drifted  into  agnos- 
ticism, as  so  many  of  them  unfortunately  have  since 
the  promulgation  of  the  papal  decrees  against  them, 
could  only  have  come  under  the  spiritual  influence  of 
men  like  von  Hiigel,  the  movement  would  have  had 


MINISTRY  IN  BRIGHTON  115 


a  very  different  fate.  Those  who  suppose  it  to  be 
finished  with,  however,  are  very  much  mistaken,  as  I 
can  testify  from  my  own  personal  knowledge,  though 
it  is  better  to  name  no  names  as  things  are  at  present. 

The  late  Wilfrid  Ward  was  another  Roman  Catho- 
lic whom  I  am  glad  to  have  known.  My  acquaintance 
with  him  began  before  I  left  Brighton,  but  it  was 
not  until  I  had  been  some  time  in  London  that  I  really 
got  to  appreciate  him.  He  combined,  perhaps  more 
than  anyone  I  have  yet  come  across,  the  modern 
habit  of  mind  with  a  reverent  consideration  for  author- 
ity in  the  fullest  sense.  He  moved  easily  and  famil- 
iarly in  both  spheres.  I  met  him  occasionally  in  a 
little  private  society  to  which  we  both  belonged,  and 
learned  to  admire  him  greatly.  His  defense  of  the 
principle  of  authority  was  more  ingenious  than  con- 
vincing. He  held  that  as  we  are  accustomed  to  recog- 
nize the  authority  of  experts  in  every  other  field,  so 
we  ought  to  admit  them  in  that  of  religion ;  and  that 
humanity  requires  a  special  organ  of  religion  to  test 
and  pronounce  upon  the  judgments  of  experts,  just 
as  it  requires  a  special  organ  for  the  maintenance  of 
social  order  and  the  like.  He  forgot  or  failed  to  note 
that  this  line  of  argument  would  prove  too  much. 
Authority  as  thus  defined  is  neither  more  nor  less 
than  an  appeal  to  right  reason  or  cumulative  spiritual 
experience,  and  does  not  claim  supernatural  sanctions. 
It  is  not  identical  with  authority  in  the  Roman  sense. 

This  account  of  my  Brighton  development  should 
not  be  closed  without  some  reference  to  my  interests 
in  political  and  social  matters.    Up  to  the  time  of 


116      A  SPIRITUAL  PILGRIMAGE 


leaving  Oxford  I  had  never  had  anything  much  to  do 
with  the  working  classes  as  such,  and  I  understood 
but  little  of  social  problems  and  the  condition  of  the 
poor.  The  Christian  Social  Union  had  just  been 
formed  by  the  Lux  Mundi  school  of  Oxford  men,  and 
I  attended  its  meetings  and  took  some  little  part 
therein,  but  I  really  had  not  time  as  an  undergraduate 
to  go  very  deeply  into  the  questions  thus  brought  to 
our  attention.  I  read  the  Fabian  Essays,  and  they 
opened  my  eyes  to  the  nature  of  the  evil  we  were  out 
to  combat,  but  then  and  for  many  years  afterwards 
I  went  but  little  further  in  the  direction  they  advo- 
cated. Bellamy's  Looking  Backward  was  the  first  of 
many  Utopias  (except  More's  own)  that  have  come 
under  my  notice  and  stimulated  my  thought  as  years 
have  passed.  This  able  book  formed  the  basis  of 
some  of  our  discussions  at  Oxford,  and  I  still  regard 
it  as  on  the  whole  the  clearest  and  most  suggestive 
forecast  of  the  socialized  state  that  has  been  given  to 
the  world.  With  Henry  George's  masterpiece,  Prog- 
ress and  Poverty,  I  did  not  make  acquaintance  till  a 
much  later  date.  I  will  defy  anyone  to  acquire  a 
thorough  grasp  of  the  case  set  forth  in  that  remark- 
able book  without  being  profoundly  influenced  thereby. 
It  has  had  a  great  deal  to  do  with  shaping  the  legisla- 
tion of  the  author's  distinguished  namesake,  Mr. 
Lloyd  George,  since  1906,  unless  report  speaks  falsely. 
An  enthusiastic  supporter  of  Mr.  Henry  George,  the 
late  Mr.  Joseph  Pels,  an  American  millionaire  who 
devoted  his  life  and  wealth  to  the  furtherance  of  the 
ideas  contained  in  Progress  and  Poverty,  once  told 


MINISTRY  IN  BRIGHTON  117 


me  that  he  regarded  Mr.  Lloyd  George  as  the  states- 
man destined  to  realize  for  civilization  at  large  the 
dream  of  the  total  abolition  of  penury  by  the  taxa- 
tion of  land  values.  It  remains  to  be  seen  how  far 
this  confident  prediction  represents  the  truth.  There 
is  little  prospect  of  it  now;  its  author  did  not  reckon 
with  the  great  war. 

The  Bitter  Cry  of  Outcast  London  was  being 
loudly  voiced  during  my  time  at  Oxford,  and  the 
University  Settlement  movement  had  begun.  The 
name  of  Arthur  Toynbee  was  on  every  lip  in  this 
connection.  Oxford  House,  Bethnal  Green,  had  been 
started  with  James  Adderley,  the  present  Dean  of 
Durham,  and  the  present  Bishop  of  London  at  its 
head  in  succession  to  each  other.  There  is  some  osten- 
sible justification  for  Canon  Adderley 's  playful 
claim  to  have  been  the  means  of  bringing  these  emi- 
nent associates  of  his  into  note.  Mr.  Percy  Alden, 
now  a  Member  of  Parliament,  and  for  twenty  years 
my  very  good  friend,  represented  Nonconformity  as 
Warden  of  the  Mansfield  House  University  Settle- 
ment, Canning  Town.  If  there  is  one  man  in  Eng- 
land who  knows  from  continuous  first-hand  experience 
the  needs  of  the  poor  and  the  best  ways  of  meeting 
them  it  is  Mr.  Alden.  We  had  also  our  own  Christ 
Church  mission,  supported  by  the  college,  which  is 
still  doing  excellent  work  in  a  London  slum  neighbor- 
hood. High  were  the  hopes  entertained  in  the  nine- 
ties concerning  the  University  Settlement  movement, 
the  bringing  of  the  best  educated  youth  of  the  nation 
into  direct  contact  with  the  poorest  of  the  poor  by 


118      A  SPIRITUAL  PILGRIMAGE 


sending  them  to  live  among  them.  Great  was  the 
enthusiasm  evoked  thereby,  but  it  is  to  be  feared  that 
the  good  results  of  the  effort  have  not  been  commen- 
surate with  the  hopes  of  its  promoters.  The  causes 
of  the  evil  lie  too  deep  for  any  single  remedy  to  effect 
a  very  great  change  for  the  better,  as  the  Fabians 
have  told  us  from  the  first. 

Mr.  Bernard  Shaw,  then  little  known  to  fame,  came 
up  to  Oxford  and  addressed  a  meeting  or  two  during 
my  time  there,  together  with  Mr.  Sidney  Webb  and 
several  more  of  the  members  of  the  newly  created 
Fabian  Society.  The  undergraduates  made  great 
sport  of  them  after  their  wont.  Mr.  Shaw  would  have 
a  very  different  reception  now.  I  believe  I  am  right 
in  saying  that  one  gentleman  belonging  to  the  depu- 
tation was  forcibly  deprived  of  his  wig,  and  had  to  go 
back  to  town  without  it.  I  do  not  know  any  Fabian 
who  wears  a  wig,  so  perhaps  the  story  is  apocryphal. 
I  do  know,  however,  that  when  Mr.  Keir  Hardie  and 
a  few  of  his  associates,  representing  the  Independent 
Labor  Party,  then  in  its  infancy,  came  up  to  address 
a  meeting  to  explain  their  policy  to  a  University  audi- 
ence, they  were  insulted,  mobbed,  and  finally  ducked. 
This  disgraceful  method  of  dealing  with  the  expo- 
nents of  unpopular  causes  was  all  too  common  in  Ox- 
ford at  that  time — and  other  times  too,  for  that 
matter. 

I  was  not  drawn  to  unite  myself  to  either  of  these 
new  parties,  nor  did  I  understand  much  about  them. 
My  knowledge  of  the  social  situation  so  far  was  very 
perfunctory;  I  had  yet  to  learn  at  first  hand  the  bare 


MINISTRY  IN  BRIGHTON  119 


rudiments  of  it.  What  books  could  teach  me  of  the 
dismal  science  I  knew ;  I  had  to  pass  searching  exami- 
nations therein.  Mill,  Adam  Smith,  and  Ricardo 
were  my  accepted  sources  of  instruction;  I  was  far 
from  having  arrived  at  the  stage  of  distrusting  both 
their  methods  and  conclusions  as  I  do  now  and  have 
done  for  many  years.  Their  economic  man  has  never 
existed  any  more  than  Jeremy  Bentham's  man  whose 
principal  motive  in  life  is  to  seek  pleasure  and  avoid 
pain;  and  their  economic  laws  are  laws  only  as  long 
as  society  chooses  and  no  longer.  I  was  thoroughly 
familiar  with  the  Social  Contract  theory,  though  I 
think  I  saw  its  weakness  from  the  first;  was  learned 
in  Rousseau,  Montesquieu,  and  all  that  ilk;  knew 
Locke  and  Sir  Henry  Maine;  followed  Dicey  and 
Cunningham.  But  I  knew  nothing  of  the  destitute 
England  at  my  doors.  For  my  degree  course  I  had 
to  work  through  the  principal  authorities  on  English 
constitutional  and  social  history,  and  therefore  was 
made  to  envisage  the  problem  of  want  and  destitu- 
tion afar  off.  I  knew  more  about  Justinian  than  I 
did  about  General  Booth  and  Darkest  England,  and 
could  have  given  a  better  account  of  Alfred's  laws 
and  the  reason  for  them,  or  the  constitution  of  the 
Saxon  folk-moot  and  the  medieval  manor,  than  of 
the  modern  demand  of  the  proletariat  for  better  hous- 
ing and  a  living  wage.  Still,  I  would  not  have  it 
imagined  that  I  was  wholly  ignorant  of  these  matters 
or  indifferent  to  the  issues  to  which  they  gave  rise. 
It  was  impossible  to  be  within  the  orbit  of  Dr.  Gore 
and  Pusey  House  without  feeling  the  great  responsi- 


120      A  SPIRITUAL  PILGRIMAGE 


bilities  that  had  to  be  faced  by  the  Church  thereupon. 
I  knew  well  enough  that  they  had  to  be  taken  seri- 
ously. What  I  did  not  see  was  that  this  must  mean 
the  organized  action  of  the  entire  commonwealth,  and 
that  nothing  short  of  that  would  really  meet  the  case. 
I  know  now  that  what  is  wanted  is  the  reconstitution 
of  society  from  top  to  bottom  under  the  inspiration  of 
Christian  ideals,  and  that  economic  laws  are  tolerable 
only  as  the  expression  of  those  ideals.  Where 
Christ  and  industrial  methods  come  into  conflict  the 
Christian  must  make  no  truce  with  the  latter. 

During  my  ministry  in  Brighton  I  gradually  be- 
came keener  upon  the  social  question,  but  was  not  yet 
prepared  to  adopt  the  Collectivist  remedy  for  our 
economic  ills.  I  was  not  much  of  a  politician,  but 
frequently  appeared  on  the  Liberal  platform  along 
with  other  Nonconformists.  I  was  several  times 
asked  to  stand  for  Parliament,  and  I  dare  say  I 
would  have  been  member  for  Brighton  at  this  mo- 
ment had  I  acceded  to  Lord  Gladstone's  request  to 
contest  that  constituency.  I  am  thankful  I  did  not. 
It  would  have  taken  me  away  from  my  true  vocation 
in  life  and  plunged  me  into  activities  for  which  I  have 
no  predilection  and  perhaps  but  little  aptitude. 


CHAPTER  VI 


EARLY  DAYS  IN  LONDON:  THE  LABOR  MOVEMENT 

At  the  beginning  of  May,  1903,  I  entered  upon  my 
duties  as  minister  of  the  City  Temple,  though,  as 
aforesaid,  my  continuous  connection  with  that  great 
church  dates  from  the  October  previous.  In  October, 
1915,  I  preached  my  last  sermon  there,  so  that  my 
London  ministry  covers  a  period  of  exactly  thirteen 
years.  It  was  a  strenuous  period,  far  too  much  so  for 
my  frail  constitution,  and  was  marked  by  no  small 
amount  of  pain,  conflict,  and  misunderstanding  which 
I  was  ill  fitted  by  nature  to  bear.  But  for  the  con- 
stant and  unvarying  fealty  of  my  people,  and  the 
touching  consideration  they  always  showed  me,  I 
should  have  resigned  my  charge  at  least  ten  years 
before  I  eventually  did  so.  Public  life  has  never  had 
any  charms  for  me.  It  is  safe  to  say  that  but  for  the 
attachment  of  the  City  Temple  congregation  and  my 
feeling  of  responsibility  for  its  welfare  I  should  have 
left  Nonconformity,  and  perhaps  withdrawn  from 
the  pulpit  altogether,  as  early  as  1905.  This  was 
the  one  bond  that  held  me,  but  it  was  a  strong  one. 
My  Brighton  doctor  gave  me  five  years  to  live  if,  as 
he  said,  I  was  foolish  enough  to  accept  the  call  to 
London  and  plunge  into  the  maelstrom  of  life  in  the 

121 


122      A  SPIRITUAL  PILGRIMAGE 

very  center  thereof.  He  proved  to  be  a  little  out  in 
his  reckoning,  but  only  because  I  dwelt  so  much  aloof 
from  the  wear  and  tear  of  public  and  social  activities. 
For  a  public  man  I  think  I  have  managed  to  secure 
more  privacy  than  any  of  my  contemporaries  known 
to  me ;  it  was  the  only  way  in  which  I  could  stand  the 
strain  of  my  work  at  all  and  keep  going. 

The  start  was  auspicious  enough.  All  denomina- 
tions vied  with  each  other  in  the  welcome  they  gave 
me  to  the  metropolis.  Many  societies,  religious  and 
other,  passed  resolutions  of  greeting  and  good-will 
to  my  endeavor  to  bend  the  bow  of  Ulysses.  I  was 
elected  president  of  I  know  not  how  many  of  them 
and  a  member  of  as  many  more,  and  had  courteously 
but  firmly  to  refuse  them  all,  on  the  ground  that  I 
must  have  time  to  discover  my  bearings  and  learn 
what  I  could  and  could  not  do.  Many  kind  things 
were  said  and  written,  little  or  nothing  unfriendly, 
not  a  few  unctuously  flattering  and  quite  untrue.  A 
sort  of  mythology  gathered  around  my  name.  Piles 
of  nonsense  were  published  concerning  my  doings, 
tastes,  and  proclivities,  sometimes  to  the  disgust  of 
my  friends,  oftener  to  their  amusement.  Throughout 
my  career,  for  the  sake  of  my  own  peace  I  have  fol- 
lowed the  simple  rule  of  not  reading  these  lucubra- 
tions, and  have  not  heard  about  them  oftener  than 
I  could  help.  But  all  told  I  was  launched  upon  the 
sea  of  a  London  ministry  with  every  circumstance  of 
honor  and  regard  that  could  be  shown  to  a  Noncon- 
formist preacher,  and  most  of  it  genuine  beyond 
doubt.  I  could  have  had  anything  I  desired  that  it  was 


EARLY  DAYS  IN  LONDON 


123 


in  the  power  of  my  co-religionists  to  give  had  I  cared 
about  it  and  avoided  rousing  antagonism.  The  warn- 
ing, "Woe  unto  you  when  all  men  shall  speak  well 
of  you,"  seemed  specially  applicable  to  my  case.  The 
day  of  my  induction  at  the  City  Temple  was  one  long 
to  be  remembered.  The  Church  of  England  was  rep- 
resented by  my  old  friend  Canon  Fleming  and  Canon 
Hensley  Henson,  then  rector  of  St.  Margaret's, 
Westminster.  Lord  Kinnaird  presided  at  the  eve- 
ning meeting.  Most  of  the  principal  Nonconform- 
ist leaders  of  England  were  present  and  took  part  in 
the  proceedings.  Messages  by  the  hundred  were 
received  from  every  part  of  the  globe.  Bishops, 
deans,  and  other  dignitaries  of  the  Established 
Church  joined  with  representatives  of  my  own  and 
other  communions  far  and  near  in  their  expression 
of  hope  that  the  blessing  of  God  would  ever  attend 
my  service  in  the  larger  sphere  to  which  I  had  now 
been  bidden  by  divine  mandate.  One  of  the  kindest 
of  these  Anglican  greetings  came  in  the  form  of  an 
autograph  letter  from  Prebendary  Carlile  of  the 
Church  Army,  the  first  of  a  number  since  received 
at  intervals  from  the  same  source.  Whenever  any- 
thing special  happens  to  me  I  am  sure  to  get  a  letter 
from  Mr.  Carlile  written  with  his  own  hand  and 
breathing  brotherly  sentiments.  How  he  finds  time 
to  do  it  I  cannot  imagine.  He  is  a  rebuke  and  a  con- 
fusion to  me  in  the  matter,  for  I  know  I  cannot  spare 
the  time  requisite  for  conducting  my  correspondence 
on  such  generous  lines.  It  appears  to  be  his  practice, 
or  so  I  assume,  to  keep  an  eye  on  the  doings  of  all  his 


124      A  SPIRITUAL  PILGRIMAGE 


friends  far  and  near,  and  to  write  to  them  at  once  to 
congratulate  them  in  joy  and  condole  with  them  in 
sorrow.   May  he  long  live  to  continue  it! 

It  may  be  that  some  of  those  present  on  the  occa- 
sion referred  to  may  remember  certain  words  of  my 
own  in  acknowledging  all  this  goodness  at  the  close  of 
the  series  of  meetings  which  began  in  the  morning  and 
concluded  late  in  the  evening.  I  said  I  had  a  mis- 
giving that  the  time  might  come  when  the  universal 
chorus  of  praise  to  which  I  was  being  all  too  gener- 
ously treated  would  be  changed  to  blame;  that  I 
thought  it  hardly  possible  that  a  man  could  do  his 
duty  in  such  a  station  without  running  the  risk  of  un- 
popularity ;  and  that  if  such  a  time  did  come  I  hoped 
at  least  to  retain  the  respect  and  forbearance  of  those 
who  might  feel  obliged  to  differ  from  me.  The  ob- 
servation passed  without  attracting  any  particular 
notice;  it  was  only  what  any  newly  inducted  minister 
might  be  expected  and  feel  bound  to  say.  But  I  was 
conscious  of  the  misgiving,  and  somewhat  uneasy 
under  the  torrent  of  kindness  that  was  being  poured 
out  so  lavishly. 

The  first  sign  of  trouble  was  a  public  difference 
with  Dr.  Clifford  on  the  subject  of  the  shortcomings 
of  the  Church  of  England.  The  Education  contro- 
versy was  in  full  blast  at  the  moment  of  my  coming 
to  London,  and  at  a  Liberation  Society  meeting 
shortly  afterwards  the  doctor  made  a  vigorous  on- 
slaught upon  the  Church  as  a  whole  and  the  Bishops 
in  particular,  the  audience  getting  more  and  more 
excited  as  he  went  on,  till  at  length  it  was  almost  in 


EARLY  DAYS  IN  LONDON  125 


a  state  of  frenzy  at  the  supposed  iniquities  its  ven- 
erated chief  was  with  burning  eloquence  denouncing. 
The  climax  of  the  speech  was  a  rhetorical  period  in 
which  the  orator  repudiated  the  accusation  that  Non- 
conformity was  jealous  of  the  privileged  position  of 
the  Establishment.  "Jealous  of  a  Church,"  he  cried, 
"which  makes  common  cause  with  the  landlords,  and 
whose  representatives  in  Parliament  and  out  of  it 
vote  down  every  measure  of  popular  reform!  Jeal- 
ous of  a  Church  whose  proudest  alliance  is  with  the' 
beer-barrel!"  and  more  in  the  same  strain.1  It  was  a 
tremendous  indictment,  delivered  with  all  the  energy 
and  passion  imaginable.  But  the  beer-barrel  part 
was  too  much  for  me,  and  I  rose  and  objected  to  it. 
I  said  that  the  vicious  yell  with  which  the  passage  was 
greeted  showed  that  it  did  no  good  either  to  the  cause 
at  issue  or  the  audience  itself,  and  only  served  need- 
lessly to  embitter  discussion.  Besides,  it  was  not  true. 
Leaving  Kingsley  and  Maurice  out  of  account,  I 
could  name  a  dozen  prominent  Anglicans  straight  off 
who  had  done  more  for  social  reform  than  almost 
any  Nonconformist,  however  eminent;  and  as  for 
Temperance  legislation,  it  owed  not  a  little  to  more 
than  one  bishop  of  my  acquaintance  whose  influence 
was  thrown  entirely  on  the  side  of  total  abstinence. 
The  protest  was  received  in  chilly  silence ;  it  was  like 
a  cold  douche  upon  a  roaring  flame.   The  enthusiasm 

1  If  my  memory  does  not  play  me  false  the  closing  words  of 
the  doctor's  thrilling  peroration  on  this  occasion  were:  "Awake, 
arise,  or  be  for  ever  fallen!" — Satan's  apostrophe  to  the  fallen 
angels  in  Paradise  Lost. 


126      A  SPIRITUAL  PILGRIMAGE 


which  had  mounted  so  high  five  minutes  before  was 
extinguished  by  my  remarks.  In  addressing  myself 
to  the  general  question  I  took  the  line  that  the  Church 
could  not  be  bludgeoned  into  disestablishing  herself, 
that  it  was  bad  for  religion  to  attempt  to  carry  dis- 
establishment in  the  teeth  of  the  opposition  of  the 
Church  and  by  insisting  that  the  Church  was  a  fail- 
ure and  a  secularized  institution.  I  reminded  my 
hearers  that  there  was  a  growing  party  in  the  Church 
which,  while  not  necessarily  regarding  the  connection 
between  Church  and  State  as  a  bad  thing,  was  pre- 
pared to  demand  complete  autonomy  for  the  former 
in  spiritual  matters ;  and  I  urged  that  the  Liberation 
Society,  true  to  its  name  and  purpose  as  originally 
avowed,  should  seek  to  make  common  cause  with  that 
party  and  lift  the  whole  subject  to  the  very  highest 
spiritual  level.  I  think  I  am  right  in  saying  that  the 
speech  was  afterwards  printed  and  circulated  by  the 
Society.  I  still  believe  the  method  thus  advocated 
to  be  the  only  one  whereby  the  very  grave  and  im- 
portant matter  of  the  "Liberation  of  Religion  from 
State  Patronage  and  Control"  should  ever  be 
approached. 

But  I  was  never  forgiven  by  militant  Nonconform- 
ists for  dissociating  myself  from  Dr.  Clifford  in  the 
manner  above  described.  God  knows  I  had  no  inten- 
tion of  being  disrespectful  to  him  or  anyone  else,  but 
I  knew,  as  most  of  that  demonstrating  assembly  could 
not  know,  the  other  side  of  the  case;  and  remember- 
ing the  immensity  of  my  own  debt  to  saintly  prelates 
as  far  as  possible  removed  from  the  description  Dr. 


EARLY  DAYS  IN  LONDON  127 


Clifford  was  giving  of  their  order,  I  could  not  in  hon- 
esty and  sincerity  allow  the  occasion  to  pass  without 
some  attempt  to  correct  what  had  been  said.  Like 
the  great-heart  that  he  was,  the  person  most  imme- 
diately concerned  never  exhibited  the  faintest  resent- 
ment against  me  because  of  it,  and  I  am  sure  never 
felt  any. 

The  next  notable  event,  so  far  as  I  was  personally 
concerned,  was  the  workingman  dispute  of  1904.  In 
an  article  in  the  National  Review  on  the  Sunday  ques- 
tion I  animadverted  on  the  habits  of  large  sections  of 
the  working  classes,  particularly  with  regard  to  drink 
and  the  selfish  pursuit  of  pleasure.  I  pointed  out  the 
danger  of  the  rapidly  growing  spirit  of  insubordina- 
tion and  fractious  irresponsibility  which  characterized 
so  much  of  the  relations  of  operatives  with  the  firms 
employing  them.  Echoing  Ruskin,  I  remarked  the 
comparative  absence  of  joy  in  labor  or  of  desire  to  do 
good  work  for  its  own  sake.  Idleness  and  dissolute- 
ness, I  said,  were  plainly  on  the  increase,  the  main 
object  of  the  workers  in  general  being  apparently  to 
do  as  little  work  for  as  much  pay  as  possible,  regard- 
less of  the  deleterious  effect  this  practice  was  having 
on  the  national  welfare  and  our  standing  in  the 
world. 

The  newspapers,  as  was  quite  natural,  detached 
this  piquant  paragraph  from  its  context  and  pub- 
lished it  broadcast.  A  storm  of  protest  instantly 
arose  which  raged  for  weeks  and  bade  fair  to  make 
me  the  bogey  man  of  the  non-churchgoing  masses. 
The  fact  that  I  was  writing  on  Sunday  observance 


128      A  SPIRITUAL  PILGRIMAGE 


escaped  their  attention,  even  if  indeed  they  ever  knew 
it.  All  they  knew  was  that  I  had  assailed  the  British 
workingman,  and  they  resented  it  furiously.  I  had 
criticized  the  rich  week-enders  too,  but  that  also  was 
forgotten  or  ignored.  Amongst  other  signs  of  the 
times  I  had  mentioned  Mr.  Balfour's  Sunday  golf. 
I  happened  to  be  lunching  with  Mr.  Balfour  at  Down- 
ing Street  one  day  shortly  afterwards,  while  the  cham- 
pions of  the  injured  workingman  were  still  pounding 
away  at  me  in  the  Press,  and  found  him  highly 
amused.  He  maintained  that  in  all  fairness  he,  too, 
ought  to  be  allowed  to  rise  in  his  wrath  and  come 
round  and  demonstrate  against  me  in  front  of  the 
City  Temple. 

The  matter  ended  as  suddenly  as  it  began.  I  was 
invited  to  attend  a  meeting  summoned  by  the  execu- 
tive of  the  London  Trades  Council  and  repeat  and 
justify  my  observations  in  the  presence  of  an  assembly 
of  representatives  of  the  workingmen  themselves.  I 
went,  and  we  parted  good  friends.  I  was  heartily 
cheered  at  the  very  outset  of  the  proceedings — which 
was  a  characteristically  British  way  of  giving  a  wel- 
come to  an  opponent — and  still  more  at  the  finish, 
when  some  of  the  horny-handed  sons  of  toil  insisted 
on  carrying  me  to  my  carriage  shoulder  high.  It  was 
the  only  occasion  on  which  a  compliment  of  this  kind 
was  ever  paid  me,  and  I  am  more  than  willing  that  it 
should  remain  such;  it  was  a  somewhat  disconcerting 
experience.  The  mob  in  the  streets,  which  did  not 
know  what  had  been  passing  inside,  made  an  ugly 
rush  at  me,  and  a  free  fight  took  place  between  my 


EARLY  DAYS  IN  LONDON  129 


stalwart  bodyguard  of  Trades  Unionists  and  my 
would-be  chastisers,  in  the  course  of  which  a  paving 
stone  was  thrown  through  the  carriage  window.  I 
sustained  no  other  damage  from  the  encounter. 

I  mention  the  above  episode  because  it  had  the 
consequence  of  bringing  me  into  touch  with  the  Labor 
movement  for  the  first  time,  and  changed  my  outlook 
on  the  social  question.  When  face  to  face  with  the 
workers  I  was  impressed  by  the  fact  that  not  one  of 
them  seriously  attempted  to  dispute  the  accuracy  of 
my  indictment ;  what  they  resented  was  that  it  should 
have  been  made  by  one  not  of  their  own  order,  one 
who  had  never  shared  the  hardships  of  the  workers' 
lot.  Mr.  John  Burns  had  said  as  much  as  I  in  the 
way  of  fault-finding,  and  said  it  more  often,  but  he 
spoke  from  within,  whereas  I  spoke  from  without ;  he 
had  been  fighting  their  battle  all  along,  I  had  never 
done  so.  Mr.  Keir  Hardie  was  present  at  the  meeting 
referred  to,  but  did  not  speak.  I  had  met  him  once 
before  in  Brighton  when  the  Penrhyn  quarrymen  sent 
a  deputation  to  the  town  to  ask  for  help  in  raising 
funds  to  maintain  their  cause  and  support  their  wives 
and  children  during  their  struggle  with  Lord  Pen- 
rhyn. Feeling  they  were  in  the  right,  I  acceded  to 
their  request  to  take  the  chair  at  their  meeting  in  the 
Dome.  They  were  also  entertained  at  Union  Church, 
and  it  was  Mr.  Keir  Hardie  who  was  their  chief 
spokesman  on  the  occasion.  Beyond  this  isolated  in- 
stance I  had  not  had  much  opportunity  of  acquiring 
a  knowledge  of  social  conditions  from  the  workers' 
point  of  view  until  and  after  the  special  gathering 


130      A  SPIRITUAL  PILGRIMAGE 


convened  by  the  London  Trades  Council  at  which  I 
was  both  critic  and  guest.  I  had  some  conversation 
with  Mr.  Hardie  before  and  after  the  meeting,  and 
we  arranged  to  meet  again  and  discuss  the  various 
points  at  issue  in  private  and  with  more  time  to  spare. 
Soon  afterwards  I  went  to  see  him,  and  from  that 
time  forward  we  remained  on  terms  of  friendship.  A 
year  or  two  later  under  his  influence  I  joined  the 
Independent  Labor  Party,  and  am  still  a  member  of 
it.  I  have  a  great  respect  for  Mr.  Hardie's  memory. 
He  was  one  of  the  most  unselfish  and  high-minded 
men  I  ever  met,  and  possessed  genuine  elements  of 
greatness.  There  was  something  leonine  about  his 
very  appearance,  and  his  character  was  cast  in  a 
massive  mold.  Nothing  mean  or  despicable  could 
ever  be  laid  to  his  charge;  he  was  innocent  of  the 
tricks  and  wiles  by  which  many  politicians  are  said  to 
elbow  their  way  to  success.  His  native  abilities  were 
so  great  that  he  could  easily  have  raised  himself  out 
of  his  class  had  he  chosen,  but  it  was  a  matter  of  prin- 
ciple with  him  never  to  do  so.  He  was  more  vilely 
abused  and  scorned  than  any  Labor  leader  of  his  time, 
and  never  came  to  his  own  except  in  the  love  and 
esteem  of  the  poor  and  lowly  whose  battle  he  so  nobly 
and  consistently  fought  till  death  took  him.  He 
feared  neither  man  nor  devil,  and  his  uncompromising 
ruggedness  of  speech,  therefore,  often  led  to  his  being 
misunderstood  and  disliked  where  a  little  more  of 
suaviter  in  modo  would  have  won  him  admiration  and 
regard.  It  was  a  pity,  for  instance,  that  he  should 
invariably  have  met  King  Edward's  advances  with 


EARLY  DAYS  IN  LONDON  131 


curt  rudeness,  for  King  Edward  always  had  an  eye 
for  a  true  man,  and  could  not  have  failed  to  appreci- 
ate Hardie's  good  qualities  if  the  rough-spoken  apos- 
tle of  social  justice  had  only  given  him  a  chance.  Few 
men  have  ever  made  so  deep  an  impression  upon  my 
mind  and  heart. 

It  is  not  generally  known,  I  think,  that  he  had  re- 
ligious susceptibilities,  though  very  critical  of  the 
churches,  as  institutions,  whose  influence  for  the 
most  part  was  thrown  on  the  side  of  the  established 
order.  In  his  early  days  he  had  been  a  lay  preacher, 
and  in  that  capacity  preached  a  sermon  which  none 
who  heard  it  is  ever  likely  to  forget.  His  text  was, 
"Consider  the  lilies  of  the  field,  how  they  grow." 
"How  do  they  grow?"  asked  the  preacher.  "Plant 
them  in  good  soil,  and  allow  them  plenty  of  fresh  air 
and  sunshine,  and  you  will  see.  Not  Solomon  in  all 
his  glory  was  arrayed  like  one  of  these.  But  put 
them  down  at  the  bottom  of  a  pit  shaft  in  darkness 
and  coal-dust,  and  how  will  they  grow  then?  Neither 
glory  nor  grace  will  they  display,  nor  will  their  feeble 
existence  last  for  long."  The  application  of  the  ser- 
mon threw  unaccustomed  light  upon  the  Savior's 
meaning.  "There  is  plenty  in  the  world  for  all  if  we 
would  only  help  each  other  to  it,  or  at  least  abstain 
from  getting  in  each  other's  way.  God's  bounty  is 
generous  enough;  it  is  man's  selfishness  that  limits 
it  and  keeps  it  away  from  starving  mouths." 

Probably  Hardie  was  greater  as  a  prophet  than 
he  ever  would  have  been  as  a  statesman.  But  he  was 
a  great  man  all  the  same,  and  I  shall  ever  be  glad 


132      A  SPIRITUAL  PILGRIMAGE 


to  have  known  him.  It  is  one  of  the  queer  things 
of  life  that  up  to  the  end  he  should  have  been  de- 
spised and  sneered  at  by  the  dominant  classes  in  the 
State,  while  his  friend  and  quondam  pupil,  Mr. 
Hughes,  Prime  Minister  of  Australia,  should  now  be 
hailed  by  these  same  classes  as  a  veritable  Daniel  come 
to  judgment  and  the  hope  of  the  future  federated 
British  Commonwealth.  There  is  not  much  doubt 
that  the  war  broke  Hardie's  heart  and  hastened  his 
end.  He  saw  in  it  the  undoing  of  his  life-work  and 
the  destruction  of  his  dream  of  internationalism  based 
upon  a  comity  of  the  workers  throughout  the  world. 

For  some  years  subsequent  to  the  above-described 
passage  at  arms  with  the  representatives  of  the  work- 
ers I  did  what  I  could  to  serve  them  by  speaking  on 
Labor  platforms.  I  was  freely  asked  to  do  so,  and 
given  a  warm  welcome  wherever  I  appeared  under 
Labor  auspices.  I  felt  it  to  be  a  divine  call  to  do  my 
utmost  in  furthering  the  association  of  religion  with 
the  social  movement.  It  seemed  to  me  then,  and 
seems  to  me  still,  a  mistake  to  allow  any  antagonism 
to  exist  between  them;  and  that  there  was  distinct 
danger  of  such  antagonism  everyone  will  admit.  The 
wage-earners  were  becoming  increasingly  class  con- 
scious, but  at  the  same  time  less  friendly  to  Christian- 
ity as  represented  by  the  churches.  Attacks  on  the 
latter  were  frequent  both  orally  and  in  print  when 
Labor  grievances  were  being  ventilated  and  Labor 
aspirations  defined.  A  strong,  determined,  and  sus- 
tained attempt  was  made  to  assimilate  the  whole  La- 
bor movement  to  Continental  Socialism,  even  up  to 


EARLY  DAYS  IN  LONDON  183 


the  point  of  rendering  it  atheistic  in  tone  and  temper. 
That  this  attempt  did  not  succeed  is  due  mainly  to 
the  different  quality  of  the  leadership  of  organized 
Labor  in  Great  Britain  as  compared  with  the  Conti- 
nent. Men  like  Mr.  Henderson  and  Mr.  Ramsay 
Macdonald  are  far  from  considering  it  their  duty  to 
identify  Labor  interests  with  opposition  to  Christian- 
ity. Mr.  Blatchford  and  his  school  failed  in  their 
object:  the  British  Labor  movement  is  not  atheistic, 
and  never  will  be.  On  the  contrary,  Labor  and  the 
Church — using  the  latter  term  in  the  widest  sense  it 
will  bear — are  getting  to  understand  each  other  bet- 
ter every  year.  The  social  consciousness  has  awak- 
ened within  the  Church,  and  Labor  has  come  to  ap- 
preciate the  fact.  But  for  the  war  I  firmly  believe 
we  should  ere  now  have  witnessed  a  great  advance  in 
mutual  confidence  and  cooperation  on  the  part  of  the 
churches  as  a  whole  with  Labor  as  a  whole.  The 
charges  which  used  to  be  made  against  the  former 
were  in  the  main  true.  They  did  neglect  their  duty 
to  the  unprivileged,  did  allow  charity — and  not  too 
much  of  that — to  usurp  the  place  of  justice,  did  de- 
fend and  were  content  to  profit  by  a  social  system 
largely  anti-Christian  and  unethical  in  its  standards. 
The  truth  was  that  the  Christian  Church  had  not  ad- 
justed itself  rightly  to  the  moral  problems  created  by 
modern  industrialism,  and  has  barely  done  so  yet. 
But  it  was  rapidly  in  process  of  doing  so  in  the  last 
few  years  up  to  the  middle  of  1914.  Lloyd  George 
legislation  would  have  been  unthinkable  a  decade 
earlier.   I  ask  my  readers  to  note  the  remarkable  fact 


134      A  SPIRITUAL  PILGRIMAGE 


that  in  this  country  there  is  no  such  mistrust  and 
opposition  between  the  Church  and  the  pioneers  of 
social  reform  as  exists  elsewhere,  and  also  to  carry 
their  memories  back  ten  or  fifteen  years  and  recall  the 
bitter  things  that  were  then  being  widely  said  on 
Labor  platforms  concerning  the  supineness  of  the 
Church  in  presence  of  the  wrongs  and  sufferings  of 
the  poor,  and  the  indifference  of  churchgoers  gener- 
ally to  the  fight  for  better  conditions.  A  great  change 
has  taken  place  in  the  interval,  a  change  surely  for 
the  better.  I  had  my  small  share  in  bringing  it  about, 
as  I  have  been  repeatedly  assured  by  responsible  per- 
sons on  both  sides ;  and  this  is  a  piece  of  work  on  which 
I  look  back  with  thankfulness.  Let  it  not  be  sup- 
posed that  I  lay  claim  to  any  great  credit  in  this  con- 
nection. Other  men  have  worked  far  harder  and 
longer,  and  to  much  better  effect. 

But  I  could  not  continue  to  take  an  active  part  in 
Labor  affairs,  much  as  I  should  have  liked  to  do  so, 
and  important  as  I  still  feel  the  work  to  be.  Health, 
as  usual,  began  to  give  way  under  the  double  strain 
of  pulpit  and  platform.  I  got  warning  after  warn- 
ing of  which  the  public  knew  nothing,  until  at  length, 
after  my  visit  to  America  in  1911,  I  had  to  withdraw 
from  the  platform  altogether  by  medical  orders.  I 
seldom  appear  on  a  platform  now,  and  am  not  likely 
to  do  so  very  much  in  future.  But  I  follow  the  Labor 
movement  with  as  great  a  sympathy  as  ever,  and  pray 
God  that  the  present  devastating  war  may  not  lead 
to  a  violent  setback  of  the  hopes  and  aims  of  those 
who  lead  it.   I  have  often  said,  and  I  here  repeat  and 


EARLY  DAYS  IN  LONDON  135 


emphasize  the  statement,  that  if  I  were  in  search  of 
moral  passion  today  I  should  know  where  to  look: 
one  would  not  need  to  go  further  than  an  ordinary- 
gathering  of  the  members  of  the  Independent  Labor 
Party.  Petulant  they  may  be,  critical  of  their  leaders, 
and  impatient  of  control ;  but  for  sheer  unselfish  devo- 
tion to  a  cause,  and  willingness  to  toil  and  sacrifice 
for  it,  they  are  unsurpassable.  It  always  used  to 
warm  my  heart  to  gaze  at  the  bright,  eager  young 
fellows  who  constituted  the  majority  of  such  assem- 
blies. The  fire  of  idealism  burned  strong  within  them 
and  glowed  in  their  faces.  The  crudeness  of  many 
of  their  opinions,  and  the  acerbity  with  which  they 
frequently  expressed  them,  did  not  blind  me  to  this. 
Willingly  would  I  have  wrought  with  them  all  my 
days,  but  I  had  finally  to  choose  between  them — or 
rather  between  their  particular  enthusiasm — and  my 
vocation  as  a  preacher.  It  had  to  be  one  or  the  other; 
it  could  not  be  both  for  long;  and  I  knew  the  one  by 
which  I  ought  to  abide. 

It  has  been  a  matter  of  deep  regret  to  me  that  the 
Independent  Labor  Party,  led  by  Messrs.  Ramsay 
Macdonald  and  Philip  Snowden,  should  have  been  so 
strongly  opposed  to  Great  Britain  entering  the  war, 
even  on  behalf  of  Belgium,  and  should  have  taken,  as 
time  has  gone  on,  a  more  and  more  uncompromising 
attitude  on  the  question.  But  this  is  attributable  to 
the  very  idealism  just  mentioned,  and  should  be  so 
regarded.  Many  conscientious  objectors  have  come 
from  its  ranks.  But  men  who  are  capable  of  taking 
such  a  stand,  at  such  personal  loss  and  risk,  for  what 


136      A  SPIRITUAL  PILGRIMAGE 

they  conceive  to  be  the  cause  of  righteousness,  are 
good  material  for  the  State ;  and  when  the  war  is  over 
we  shall  need  it  sorely.  On  the  other  hand,  when  they 
write  to  me  to  insist,  as  some  of  them  habitually  do, 
that  the  priest  is  once  more  at  his  old  game  of  preach- 
ing blood  and  slaughter,  I  would  take  leave  to  re- 
mind them  that  no  priest  to  my  knowledge  is  doing 
anything  of  the  sort.  The  Christian  ministers  who 
believe  their  country  to  be  in  the  right  in  the  present 
contest  are  not  preaching  war.  They  hate  war  as 
much  as  the  extremest  conscientious  objector  could 
possibly  do.  Who  does  not  hate  war?  But  we  be- 
lieve that  war  was  in  this  case  unavoidable  if  our 
nation  was  to  be  saved  from  dishonor  and  all  that  we 
hold  most  dear,  including  our  dreams  of  a  nobler  and 
happier  commonwealth,  from  destruction.  By  and 
by,  please  God,  we  shall  gather  up  the  broken  threads, 
and  begin  to  weave  anew  the  fabric  of  international 
amity  that  has  been  torn  in  pieces  by  Prussian  mili- 
tarism and  all  its  evil  concomitants.  Then,  and  not 
till  then,  will  our  hopes  of  a  world-wide  social  democ- 
racy have  a  chance  of  being  realized.  Perhaps  the 
present  breakdown  of  those  hopes  by  the  defection  of 
German  Socialism  from  the  cause  of  universal  broth- 
erhood to  that  of  a  domineering  nationalism  allied  to 
brute  force  will  lead  to  a  higher  and  more  spiritual 
conception  of  what  is  to  be  gained  thereby  in  the  end. 

Whether  I  am  still  a  member  of  the  Fabian  Society 
I  cannot  say.  It  depends,  I  suppose,  upon  whether 
I  have  paid  my  subscription  for  the  current  year, 
which  is  extremely  doubtful.   On  the  other  hand,  it  is 


EARLY  DAYS  IN  LONDON  137 

possible  that  I  may  have  paid  it  twice  over,  a  thing 
I  not  infrequently  do  with  my  multifarious  obliga- 
tions of  a  like  character.  I  was  invited  to  become  a 
Fabian  soon  after  I  began  to  take  an  active  interest 
in  economic  problems  from  the  Labor  standpoint, 
and  did  so.  To  know  Mr.  and  Mrs.  Sidney  Webb  is 
a  liberal  education  in  itself ;  and  no  small  part  of  the 
very  considerable  achievements  of  the  Fabian  Society, 
not  only  in  influencing  public  opinion  but  in  getting 
things  done,  must  be  placed  to  the  credit  of  this  re- 
markable pair.  Mr.  Bernard  Shaw  I  had  met  fre- 
quently before,  and  we  have  always  been  on  excellent 
terms.  He  is  of  course  much  more  than  the  prophet 
of  Fabianism,  but  he  is  certainly  that.  Consciously 
or  unconsciously,  the  Society  takes  its  tone  from  him. 
It  is  desperately  clever,  merciless  in  criticism  of  its 
own  members  and  everybody  else,  and  pretends  to  be 
without  sentiment  whereas  it  is  nothing  of  the  kind. 
It  has  what  the  late  Professor  Seeley  called  "the  en- 
thusiasm of  humanity,"  but  it  would  not  be  less  effec- 
tive if  it  showed  it  a  little  more.  I  should  think  no 
society  in  proportion  to  its  numbers  has  done  so  much 
in  the  way  of  influencing  legislation;  many  are  the 
Fabian  proposals  which  have  passed  into  law.  The 
members  pride  themselves  on  this,  as  well  they  may. 
They  are  a  highly  superior  set  of  people,  and  know  it 
thoroughly.  Lest  they  should  be  exalted  overmuch  in 
their  own  esteem,  I  append  the  following  anecdote  to 
the  respectful  testimony  I  have  felt  bound  to  pay  to 
their  power  and  repute.  Some  years  ago — about 
seven  or  eight,  I  think — Sir  Oliver  Lodge  wrote  to  me 


138      A  SPIRITUAL  PILGRIMAGE 

to  say  that  he  had  been  asked  by  the  Fabian  Society  to 
allow  an  address  of  his  on  national  expenditure  to  ap- 
pear as  one  of  their  tracts.  "What  on  earth  is  the 
Fabian  Society?"  inquired  the  famous  scientist.  "Can 
you  tell  me  anything  about  it?"  Hide  your  dimin- 
ished heads,  ye  instructors  of  statesmen  and  inspirers 
of  Acts  of  Parliament !  Here  is  at  least  one  man  of 
eminence  who  had  never  heard  of  you  and  your  im- 
pressive doings,  and  had  never  read  a  Fabian  tract 
till  he  wrote  one  himself.  Still  I  hope  every  Fabian 
would  be  satisfied  with  the  answer  I  gave  to  Sir  Oli- 
ver's interrogation.  I  said:  "The  Fabian  Society 
consists  of  intellectuals  who  may  also  be  described  as 
aristocratic  socialists." 

While  writing  about  Fabianism  I  must  not  omit 
to  mention  two  excellent  works  which  I  have  read 
with  much  profit  and  appreciation — Human  Nature 
in  Politics,  by  Mr.  Graham  Wallas,  and  the  Preven- 
tion of  Destitution,  by  Mr.  and  Mrs.  Webb.  For 
thoroughness  of  treatment  and  practical  suggestive- 
ness  each  is  in  its  way  of  the  highest  order.  Mr. 
Wallas's  book  is  unique.  It  covers  a  field  economists 
have  hitherto  for  the  most  part  been  content  to  ignore. 

But  I  am  no  politician,  and  am  quite  devoid  of  the 
desire  to  shine  on  committees  or  in  the  councils  of 
state.  My  one  and  only  motive  for  mixing  myself 
up  with  such  questions  as  those  with  which  the 
Fabian  Society  and  the  Independent  Labor  Party 
were  formed  to  deal  is  my  compassion  for  the 
lot  of  the  poor  and  downtrodden.  I  am  con- 
vinced that  our  present  materialistic  civilization 


EARLY  DAYS  IN  LONDON  139 


is  largely  a  failure  because  it  exalts  the  machine  at 
the  expense  of  the  man.  It  can  give  no  coherent 
account  of  itself.  If  one  were  to  ask  what  the  purpose 
of  civilization  is  nowadays  there  could  be  no  obvious 
and  ready  answer — none,  at  any  rate,  that  could  be 
expressed  in  terms  of  the  spirit.  We  have  been  for 
so  long  engaged  in  exploiting  the  material  resources 
of  the  world  we  live  in  that  we  have  largely  forgotten 
to  inquire  for  what  life  itself  is  given  us.  As  Alfred 
Russel  Wallace  points  out  in  his  book,TheW onderful 
Century,  civilized  man  has  made  a  greater  advance  in 
the  acquirement  of  power  over  nature  during  the  last 
fifty  years  or  so  than  during  the  two  thousand  years 
preceding.  To  what  has  it  all  come  ?  Has  there  been 
anything  like  a  commensurate  moral  advance,  or  even 
an  appreciable  increase  in  the  sum  of  human  happi- 
ness? It  may  be  gravely  doubted.  The  war  is  the 
Nemesis  of  our  vain  imaginings.  We  have  pursued 
material  good  with  a  zest  and  whole-hearted  absorp- 
tion unprecedented  in  the  history  of  the  race,  and 
now  that  very  aptitude  is  destroying  us.  Science  has 
turned  "procuress  to  the  lords  of  hell,"  and  is  filling 
the  world  with  grief  and  despair.  Never  was  such 
devilish  ingenuity  expended  in  the  business  of  killing 
and  maiming  men  as  now;  never  were  its  fell  effects 
so  widespread  and  altogether  appalling  in  their  fiend- 
ishness.  Truly,  as  Dr.  Richard  Glover  of  Bristol 
said  many  years  ago,  there  is  something  sinister  about 
civilization. 

What  I  came  to  see  with  clear  vision  ten  years 
ago  was  that  our  civilization  bore  hardly  on  the  toiler. 


140      A  SPIRITUAL  PILGRIMAGE 


The  wage  system  gave  us  the  slum,  the  factory,  the 
phenomenon  of  unemployment,  the  enslavement  of 
the  many  for  the  benefit  of  the  few.  I  saw  that  the 
habitual  assumption  that  somehow  all  this  was  in  the 
natural  order  of  things  and  incurable  was  untrue. 
It  became  obvious  to  me  that  charity  would  not  meet 
the  case,  and  that  our  various  Poor  Law  agencies  were 
so  many  palliatives  for  a  disease  which  was  rooted  in 
the  social  system  itself  and  ought  to  be  got  out. 
What  was  needed  was  that  we  should  stop  our  mad 
rush  for  money-getting  and  begin  to  live,  that  we 
should  do  on  less  and  distribute  it  more  fairly,  that 
instead  of  a  few  owning  all  the  means  of  life  and 
making  the  others  work  for  them,  we  should  own  the 
means  of  life  in  common  and  each  do  our  part  in  the 
task  of  production.  In  other  words,  I  learned  that 
the  radical  cure  for  our  economic  ills  was  not  to  be 
sought  in  almsgiving  and  workhouses,  but  in  the  sub- 
stitution of  the  principle  of  cooperation  for  that  of 
competition.  I  blamed  the  Church  (including  my- 
self) for  being  so  slow  to  discern  that  this  was  the 
true  Christian  solution  of  the  complicated  problem 
of  hopeless  poverty  and  all  the  degradation  so  com- 
monly associated  therewith.  I  still  feel  that  we  are 
much  to  blame,  but  I  feel  in  addition  that  the  root  of 
the  problem  is  one  of  morals,  and  not  of  social  ar- 
rangements only  or  chiefly.  It  is  a  matter  of  the 
human  will  as  of  old,  the  individual  and  collective  will, 
that  makes  or  mars  a  people's  destiny.  The  best 
social  system  that  could  be  devised  would  fail  without 
a  socialized  general  consciousness  to  work  it.   That  is 


EARLY  DAYS  IN  LONDON  141 


what  is  lacking,  the  mind  that  thinks  and  feels  in 
terms  of  the  whole.  The  social  ideal  and  the  Chris- 
tian ideal  are  the  same,  only  the  latter  goes  fur- 
ther. As  I  have  more  than  once  observed  from  the 
pulpit,  perfect  socialism  and  perfect  anarchy  are  one, 
namely,  the  service  which  is  perfect  freedom.  But 
this  can  never  be  imposed  from  without,  it  has  to  be 
expressed  from  within,  the  revealing  of  the  love  which 
seeketh  not  its  own. 

In  the  early  days  of  my  association  with  the  Labor 
movement  I  was  inclined  to  take  platform  denuncia- 
tions of  the  shortcomings  of  the  Church  at  their  face 
value.  I  know  better  now.  When  workingmen  tell 
me  that  they  do  not  go  to  church  because  they  are 
disgusted  with  the  way  in  which  the  clergy  have 
truckled  to  the  capitalist,  or  because  they  are  alien- 
ated by  the  nonsense  talked  from  the  pulpit,  I  remain 
unimpressed.  I  used  to  believe  those  things,  and  I 
still  admit  that  there  may  be  a  modicum  of  truth  in 
them,  but  not  very  much.  The  reasons  for  the  decline 
of  attendance  at  public  worship,  and  indeed  of  inter- 
est in  organized  Christianity,  not  only  on  the  part  of 
the  working  classes  but  of  all  other  classes,  are  to  be 
sought  in  a  different  quarter.  I  do  not  observe  that 
workingmen  attend  the  churches  wherein  the  clergy 
are  sympathetic  with  their  aspirations  in  greater 
numbers  than  attend  other  churches.  Some  of  the 
most  devoted  and  self-sacrificing  of  the  socialist 
clergy  preach  every  Sunday  to  empty  benches;  the 
workers  will  listen  to  them  on  the  platform  but  not 
in  the  pulpit,  applaud  them  when  they  talk  politics 


142      A  SPIRITUAL  PILGRIMAGE 


but  do  not  care  to  hear  them  talk  religion.  Nor  is  it 
their  theology  which  is  to  blame.  We  are  no  abler 
than  our  creed-making  forefathers — far  from  it;  the 
average  man  simply  cannot  follow  a  sustained  argu- 
ment in  pulpit  or  Press  today ;  he  is  so  accustomed  to 
being  fed  with  snippets  and  spicy  paragraphs  that 
he  has  lost  the  faculty  of  concentrating  attention  on 
serious  subjects  for  long  together.  If  proof  is  needed 
of  the  fact  that  theology  has  nothing  to  do  with  the 
fullness  or  emptiness  of  a  church  it  is  readily  forth- 
coming. It  is  all  a  question  of  the  personality  of  the 
man  in  the  pulpit.  If  he  is  a  good  speaker  and  other- 
wise interesting  in  himself  he  will  have  plenty  of  hear- 
ers. He  can  preach  what  he  likes,  doctrinally  I  mean, 
and  his  congregation  will  listen.  If,  on  the  other 
hand,  he  has  no  popular  gifts  he  may  be  the  possessor 
of  all  the  wisdom  of  all  the  ages  but  will  be  left  to 
waste  his  sweetness  on  the  desert  air.  That  is  a  fact 
there  is  no  gainsaying.  It  is  not  theology,  good  or 
bad,  old  or  new,  sound  or  unsound,  that  keeps  people 
away  from  church  or  draws  them  to  it.  They  care 
nothing  about  theology;  it  would  be  better  if  they 
did ;  what  they  care  about  is  being  interested.  There 
is  no  greater  delusion  than  to  suppose,  as  so  many  of 
us  have  done  from  time  to  time,  that  the  modern  man 
is  repelled  from  religious  observance  by  what  he  is 
required  to  believe.  Experience  compels  me  to  affirm 
that  it  is  not  the  difficulty  of  squaring  Christianity 
with  modern  science  that  is  in  question,  but  rather 
the  difficulty  of  squaring  its  ethical  precepts  with  the 
requirements  of  industrial  and  commercial  practice. 


EARLY  DAYS  IN  LONDON  143 


Young  men  have  assured  me  over  and  over  again  that 
what  they  had  to  do  in  business  in  order  to  keep  their 
situations  rendered  it  impossible  for  them  to  make  a 
profession  of  Christianity;  and  that  in  any  case 
Christianity  and  the  competitive  system  which  forms 
the  economic  basis  of  modern  civilization  seemed  to 
them  to  come  into  conflict  at  every  point.  They  could 
not  understand  how  there  could  be  truce  between 
them,  and  hence  they  had  to  accept  facts  as  they  were 
and  refuse  to  play  the  hypocrite  by  maintaining  on 
Sunday  what  their  conduct  belied  all  the  rest  of  the 
week.  I  know  this  to  be  a  very  serious  problem  with 
young  men,  and  it  is  the  best  of  them  that  feel  it 
most. 

But  I  am  far  from  suggesting  that  these  are  the 
majority.  When  troubled  brother  clergy  come  to  me 
and  ask  why  they  cannot  get  their  parishioners  to 
come  to  church,  and  in  what  manner  they  themselves 
are  to  blame  for  failing  to  lay  hold  of  the  absentees, 
or  when  laymen  in  superior  fashion  lecture  the  clergy 
in  the  newspapers  and  explain  why  people  will  not 
listen  to  them — the  explanations  of  one  critic  neutral- 
izing those  of  another  as  a  rule — and  warn  us  that 
there  are  more  dreadful  things  in  store  for  us  if  we 
do  not  amend  our  ways,  or  when  in  private  conven- 
tions of  the  clergy  I  find  them  inclined  to  wear  sack- 
cloth and  ashes  and  confess  their  own  incompetence 
and  unworthiness  as  responsible  for  all  the  mischief,  I 
can  only  tell  them  they  are  mistaken.  I  know  it,  for 
I  think  I  have  probed  the  matter  to  the  bottom.  The 
true  explanation  is  to  be  sought  in  the  habit  of  mind 


144      A  SPIRITUAL  PILGRIMAGE 


of  the  age,  and  it  is  easy  to  see  what  that  is  and  what 
has  made  it.  For  generations  past  we  have  been 
growing  a  type  of  man  whose  interests  are  mainly  on 
the  outside  of  life.  The  amazing  advance  of  physical 
science  in  the  Victorian  era,  following  upon  the  indus- 
trial revolution  of  the  eighteenth  century,  has  accus- 
tomed us  to  values  expressible  for  the  most  part  in 
terms  of  what  can  be  measured  and  weighed.  Many 
people  would  refuse  to  believe  that  there  could  be 
other  values.  Men  tend  to  become  like  their  pursuits, 
and  our  utilitarian  pursuits  have  made  us  utilitarian  in 
taste  and  outlook.  The  practical  man  is  assumed  to 
be  the  man  who  knows  best  how  to  succeed  in  utili- 
tarian schemes,  not  the  man  who  sees  life  sub  specie 
ceternitatis  and  orders  his  course  accordingly.  Rich 
and  poor,  it  is  just  the  same:  the  one  has  what  the 
other  wants,  and  neither  has  inclination  for  the  super- 
mundane. 

This  is  the  secret  of  the  falling  off  in  church  attend- 
ance. Taken  on  the  whole  the  clergy  of  today,  of 
any  denomination  and  of  all,  are  at  least  the  equals 
of  those  of  any  previous  generation  and  superior  to 
most.  The  state  of  things  disclosed  in  Laud's 
metropolitical  visitation,  for  example,  or  in  Cecil's 
report  to  Queen  Elizabeth,  would  be  inconceivable 
at  the  present  time.  We  have  few  or  no  evil-livers 
now  among  those  having  cure  of  souls,  no  ab- 
sentee holders  of  benefices,  no  worldly  prelates  who 
never  enter  their  dioceses.  We  have  no  ground  for 
assuming  that  the  standard  of  learning  or  intellectual 
attainment  was  higher  among  parish  priests  in  the 


EARLY  DAYS  IN  LONDON  145 


sixteenth  and  seventeenth  centuries  than  it  is  now ;  the 
evidence  points  rather  to  the  contrary.  Sermons, 
when  there  were  any,  were  not  easier  to  listen  to  then 
than  now.  Most  of  them  must  have  been  rather  tedi- 
ous, judged  by  modern  tastes  in  homiletical  matters. 
It  was  the  hearers  that  were  different,  that  is  all. 
There  was  nothing  to  compete  with  the  sermon  then; 
the  church  was  the  one  great  social  center  in  every 
parish,  the  religious  service  the  principal  social  ex- 
citement to  which  people  looked  forward.  There  were 
no  picture  palaces,  no  bicycles  or  motor  cars,  no  pop- 
ular magazines  and  illustrated  papers.  The  popula- 
tion was  not  mobile;  where  people  were  born  there 
they  lived,  and  there  for  the  most  part  they  died. 
They  have  to  be  entertained  nowadays,  and  their  occu- 
pations throughout  the  week  are  such  as  to  incline 
them  to  demand  entertainment  on  Sunday,  and  they 
get  it.  Let  all  this  be  remembered,  and  the  wonder 
will  not  be  that  so  many  stay  away  from  church,  but 
that  so  many  go.  It  will  have  to  alter,  of  that  we  may 
be  sure.  Neither  man  nor  nation  can  go  on  forever 
pampering  the  flesh  and  starving  the  soul.  The  time 
must  come,  and  this  terrible  war  is  helping  to  bring  it 
about,  when  civilization  as  a  whole  will  rediscover  that 
man  cannot  live  by  bread  alone,  but  by  every  word 
that  proceedeth  out  of  the  mouth  of  God. 

These  are  some  of  the  things  I  learned  from  my 
intercourse  with  Fabians  and  Labor  men,  and  I  have 
seen  no  reason  to  revise  the  conclusions  thus  arrived 
at.  Our  social  system  is  not  Christian;  it  is  largely 
anti-Christian;  and  our  productive  energies  need  to  be 


146      A  SPIRITUAL  PILGRIMAGE 


socialized  in  order  that  the  individual  may  be  free 
to  develop  the  best  that  is  in  him  and  attain  to  a  richer, 
fuller,  gladder  life  than  the  majority  have  yet 
glimpsed.  But  until  the  common  consciousness  is 
socialized  that  day  must  wait;  and  to  have  the  com- 
mon consciousness  socialized  means  to  have  it  spirit- 
ualized. It  is  to  realize  that  we  are  members  one  of 
another,  and  that  no  life  can  be  lived  to  itself  alone. 
In  other  words,  the  reaffirmation  of  religion  is  the 
prime  necessity  of  the  hour  in  every  department  of  our 
national  activity,  and  without  it  no  progress  worthy 
of  the  name  can  or  will  be  made  when  the  time  comes 
for  rebuilding  the  ruined  fabric  of  human  hopes  and 
aims. 


CHAPTER  VII 

PREACHING,  INDIVIDUAL  DEALING,  BEGINNINGS 
OF  RELIGIOUS  CONTROVERSY 

From  the  beginning  of  my  London  ministry  my 
pulpit  teaching  was  viewed  with  suspicion  by  ortho- 
dox Nonconformists.  It  lacked  their  mental  accent; 
few  of  their  time-honored  evangelical  phrases  found 
a  place  in  it,  and  consequently  they  were  somewhat 
at  a  loss  to  know  what  to  make  of  it ;  it  did  not  fit  in 
with  their  traditions  at  all.  Such,  at  any  rate,  was 
the  feeling  of  the  rank  and  file.  Before  long  their 
leaders  began  to  show  them  that  it  was  pernicious. 
Perhaps  they  did  not  need  much  showing;  I  rather 
suspect  that  the  uneasiness  of  the  rank  and  file  was 
due  originally  to  the  free-spoken  way  in  which  I  intro- 
duced Biblical  criticism  into  my  preaching.  They  did 
not  want  the  Bible  interfered  with  at  any  price,  or 
so  they  said.  It  did  not  occur  to  them  that  the  Bible 
was  made  a  much  more  interesting,  human,  and  read- 
able book  thereby,  and  that  its  homiletical  value  was 
greatly  increased.  The  habit  of  reticence  concerning 
the  assured  results  of  criticism  adopted  by  so  many 
preachers  seemed  to  me  then,  as  it  does  now,  a  mis- 
taken one  and  not  wholly  honest.  The  pulpit  has 
everything  to  gain  and  nothing  to  lose  in  force  and 

147 


148      A  SPIRITUAL  PILGRIMAGE 


effectiveness  by  being  frank  about  such  matters.  But 
time  is  required  for  people  to  get  used  to  them,  and 
the  transition  period  is  necessarily  a  difficult  one  for 
the  preacher  who  takes  his  duty  seriously  and  tries  to 
instruct  his  people  in  the  conclusions  to  which  scholars 
generally  have  come  with  regard  to  the  sacred  narra- 
tive. They  are  apt  to  take  alarm,  and  to  consider  that 
any  questioning  of  the  record  as  it  stands  weakens  its 
authority.  It  is  only  by  degrees,  as  a  rule,  that  they 
can  be  made  to  see  that  the  contrary  is  the  fact,  that 
expert  criticism  of  the  literary  and  historical  sources 
of  the  various  books  of  the  Bible  serves  only  to  estab- 
lish more  firmly  than  ever  its  uniqueness  as  a  record  of 
divine  revelation  and  of  the  ways  of  God  with  man. 
For  my  own  part  I  confess  that,  looking  back  upon 
a  twenty-one  years  ministry,  I  can  but  feel  grateful 
for  the  light  that  has  been  shed  upon  my  knowledge 
of  scripture  during  that  period,  and  the  greater  power 
it  gives  in  interpreting  it  in  terms  of  modern  prob- 
lems and  modern  needs.  In  no  department  of  my 
work  have  I  benefited  more.  If  I  had  the  time  to  do 
it  as  it  ought  to  be  done  I  should  like  to  write  a  com- 
mentary on  those  portions  of  Holy  Writ  on  which 
scientific  criticism  has  rendered  it  possible  to  preach 
and  which  were  not  susceptible  of  sermonic  treatment 
heretofore.  One  would  be  glad  to  show  busy  pastors 
how  close  they  come  in  their  parallelisms  to  condi- 
tions with  which  we  find  ourselves  wrestling  today. 
It  would  be  a  useful  work.  Perhaps  someone  else 
will  adopt  the  suggestion  and  do  it.  It  has  not  been 
done  yet,  notwithstanding  the  extensive  literature  in 


PREACHING 


149 


which  the  results  of  investigation  in  this  field  have 
been  given  to  the  public. 

If  I  am  to  believe  the  testimony  of  numerous  cler- 
ical correspondents,  my  published  sermons  did  some- 
thing to  help  in  this  direction.  One  eminent  Noncon- 
formist minister,  the  soundness  of  whose  theology 
could  hardly  be  called  in  question,  has  been  good 
enough  to  say  that  my  influence  as  thus  exercised  has 
led  to  a  great  and  general  change  in  the  way  of  dis- 
cussing problems  of  Biblical  exegesis  in  the  pulpit; 
he  affirms  that  preachers  are  now  freer  to  say  what 
they  know  about  such  questions  without  risk  of  dis- 
turbing their  congregations  unduly ;  and  that  they  are 
better  able  to  give  their  knowledge  a  spiritual  applica- 
tion. I  mention  this  with  some  diffidence,  but  I  think 
it  must  be  true.  Both  pulpit  and  pew  have  moved 
faster  and  farther  than  they  realize  within  the  last 
ten  years  in  taking  positions  for  granted  which  for- 
merly would  have  been  viewed  with  consternation. 
There  could  be  no  greater  misconception  than  that  so 
commonly  held,  that  the  general  bearing  of  criticism 
is  negative  and  destructive.  It  is  both  positive  and 
constructive,  and  has  discovered  the  Bible  to  be  more 
than  ever  the  word  of  God  and  an  inexhaustible  ar- 
mory of  spiritual  truth. 

My  sermons  have  always  been  published  freely,  but 
mostly  during  the  thirteen  years  of  my  association 
with  the  City  Temple.  At  first  they  were  reported 
and  issued  without  revision,  a  practice  which  I  later 
saw  reason  to  discontinue.  For  the  last  eight  or  nine 
years  my  method  has  been  to  dictate  them  before 


150      A  SPIRITUAL  PILGRIMAGE 


preaching  them,  and  when  possible  to  see  a  proof  be- 
fore allowing  them  to  appear  in  print.  Compara- 
tively few  journalists  can  report  a  sermon  properly; 
it  is  a  very  different  matter  from  reporting  a  public 
speech;  and  in  all  innocence  they  have  made  me  re- 
sponsible occasionally  for  the  most  atrocious  senti- 
ments. And  when  it  comes  to  quotations,  heaven  help 
the  preacher!  It  is  best  to  avoid  everything  but  the 
plainest  English  unless  one  wants  to  mystify  or  de- 
moralize the  sermon-reading  public.  I  once  repeated 
a  saying  of  Origen's,  "Caritas  est  passio"  a  fairly 
obvious  one  I  should  have  thought.  Next  day  it  ap- 
peared in  the  Press :  "Contas  est  Bacio"  1 — a  poser 

1  Be  it  far  from  me  to  rail  at  the  Press.  On  the  whole,  in 
Great  Britain  we  have  every  reason  to  be  proud  of  our  Press  and 
the  way  in  which  it  is  conducted.  But  if  I  were  asked  to  supply 
a  volume  of  recollections  of  the  funny  or  exasperating  distortions 
of  my  utterances  which  have  appeared  in  the  newspapers,  I  think 
I  could  easily  manage  it.  With  the  best  of  intentions  sometimes 
one  paper  has  credited  me  with  saying  something  wholly  inde- 
fensible for  which  others  have  promptly  and  solemnly  taken  me 
to  task.  Of  late,  for  example,  I  have  been  writing  articles, 
mostly  with  an  ethical  or  religious  bearing,  for  a  Sunday  paper. 
But  the  editors  retained  the  right  to  announce  the  subjects  of 
my  articles  as  they  thought  best.  Here  are  two  specimens.  I 
wrote  one  which  I  entitled  "War  and  Sacrifice."  It  appeared  as 
"Why  We  Envy  Our  Dead."  That  I  had  made  no  mention  of 
envying  the  dead  was  apparently  a  negligible  point.  Next  week 
the  New  Statesman  had  a  leader  on  my  supposed  delinquency  in 
choosing  such  a  theme.  After  the  murder  of  Captain  Fryatt  I 
sent  another  with  the  superscription,  "The  Humanity  of  Re- 
prisals." In  advertisement  and  in  the  paper  itself  it  was  pre- 
sented to  the  public  as  follows :   "Hang  the  Ruffians  !   Hang  them 


PREACHING 


151 


for  philologists.  I  have  long  been  cured  of  any  ten- 
dency to  make  use  of  academic  language  in  the  pulpit, 
and  my  firm  advice  to  young  preachers  would  be: 
Avoid  it  as  you  would  the  plague.  You  cannot  be  too 
simple  in  your  phrasing,  whatever  you  are  in  your 
thought.  Never  overrate  the  intelligence  of  your 
hearers.  Have  you  never  noticed  how  much  more  in- 
tently the  grown-ups  will  listen  to  a  children's  sermon 
than  they  will  to  one  supposed  to  be  addressed  to 
themselves?  The  hint  is  worth  taking.  I  am  not 
recommending  simplicity  in  the  matter  of  sermons — 
though  there  is  something  to  be  said  for  that  too, 
without  descending  to  claptrap — but  simplicity  in 
speech.  It  is  not  so  easy  to  be  simple  as  some  peo- 
ple suppose.  I  have  seldom  let  my  congregations 
off  easily;  I  always  endeavored  to  make  it  my 
business  to  teach  them  something  solid  and  true 
upon  the  passage  of  scripture  upon  which  our  atten- 
tion was  fixed  for  the  time  being,  and  to  give  it  a  prac- 
tical application  to  their  own  experience;  but  I  hope 
I  did  not  often  weary  them  with  high-sounding  rhet- 
oric and  vague  phraseology.  Hence  there  grew  up  a 
demand  for  the  circulation  of  the  sermon  by  the 
printed  page.  One  at  least  was  published  every  week 
in  the  Christian  Commonwealth.  During  the  last  few 
years  before  I  left  London  another  appeared  fort- 

now!"  Effective  certainly,  but  the  flood  of  abuse  I  got  after- 
wards from  fierce-minded  pacifists  for  my  vigorous  language 
was  scarcely  merited.  The  credit  wholly  belonged  to  the  editor. 
A  good  fellow  he  was,  too,  and  I  should  be  sorry  to  rob  him  of 
this  or  any  other  distinction  he  had  fairly  earned. 


152      A  SPIRITUAL  PILGRIMAGE 


nightly  in  the  Christian  World  Pulpit,  and  a  third  in 
the  British  Congregationalist,  besides  occasional  re- 
prints in  the  American  and  Colonial  religious  Press. 
Latterly  the  regular  weekly  circulation  of  the  ser- 
mons preached  in  the  City  Temple  must  have  been 
about  sixty  thousand.  Three  published  sermons  a 
week  is  too  great  an  output  for  one  preacher,  and  I 
would  never  undertake  the  like  again.  It  entails  a 
considerable  amount  of  unavoidable  labor,  and  has 
the  additional  disadvantage  of  preventing  any  ac- 
cumulation of  material:  what  is  given  out  is  gone 
forever.  Further,  it  is  impossible  to  find  time  for  any 
other  description  of  literary  work.  Since  I  was  or- 
dained in  the  Church  of  England  I  have  been  pressed 
to  resume  the  weekly  publication  of  my  sermons,  and 
I  take  this  opportunity  of  explaining  why  I  have  felt 
obliged  to  decline.  I  am  sorry  to  lose  touch  with  my 
invisible  congregation  all  over  the  world,  but  the  drain 
is  too  great.  I  am  glad  to  be  able  to  make  a  fresh 
start  without  committing  myself  to  such  a  strenuous 
task.  For  the  publication  went  on  whether  I  was 
occupying  the  pulpit  or  not.  If  I  was  ill  or  away 
on  holiday  the  inevitable  sermon  proof  came  just  the 
same,  or  more  often  was  printed  without  correction, 
with  the  result  that  every  word  I  ever  said  from  the 
pulpit  found  its  way  into  print  sooner  or  later.  I 
think  I  may  fairly  be  spared  that  ordeal  for  the  rest 
of  my  allotted  span  of  years  in  the  Christian  ministry, 
be  it  long  or  short. 

Many  of  the  sermons  were  translated  into  foreign 
languages,  and  a  volume  of  interesting  reminiscences 


PREACHING 


153 


might  be  compiled  from  the  correspondence  arising 
out  of  this  fact.  One  or  two  collections  of  them  ap- 
peared in  Germany,  another  in  Holland,  and  a  certain 
number  in  France,  Switzerland,  and  Scandinavia. 
Letters  about  them  came  from  queer  out-of-the-way 
corners  in  the  Balkans,  South  America,  and  tropical 
Africa,  not  to  speak  of  Egypt  and  India.  Few  or 
no  civilized  countries,  or  uncivilized  ones  wherein 
Europeans  were  to  be  found,  were  unrepresented  in 
that  correspondence;  much  of  it  was  very  touching 
and  not  a  little  curious.  Japan  has  always  supplied 
a  goodly  company  of  readers  of  my  sermons,  and  I 
have  been  deeply  impressed  by  the  high  quality  of  the 
letters  received  from  that  country  on  religious  sub- 
jects. A  young  man  once  journeyed  up  to  London 
to  see  me  from  the  Orkney  Islands.  He  said  he  had 
been  a  regular  reader  of  my  sermons  for  years,  and 
felt  he  would  like  to  know  me  personally.  Others 
came  on  the  same  kind  of  errand  from  even  more 
remote  places,  such  as  Iceland  and  the  hinterland  of 
British  Burmah.  But  this  department  of  my  minis- 
try, however  interesting  to  myself,  may  not  be  equally 
so  to  others,  so  I  shall  say  no  more  about  it. 

One  outcome  of  it  deserves  special  mention.  It 
created  a  kind  of  spontaneous  confessional.  The  cen- 
tral position  of  the  City  Temple  made  it  a  place  of 
resort  for  visitors  of  all  descriptions,  and  the  connec- 
tion thus  established  between  the  pulpit  and  casual 
members  of  the  congregation  was  often  carried  fur- 
ther by  means  of  the  printed  sermon.  Frequently  it 
happened  that  such  hearers  or  readers  would  have 


154      A  SPIRITUAL  PILGRIMAGE 


their  attention  arrested  by  the  delineation  of  some 
moral  problem  or  some  case  of  special  difficulty  or 
sorrow  which  appeared  to  them  identical  with  their 
own.  Sometimes  this  took  place  by  means  of  the 
printed  page  only,  and  I  would  hear  from  persons 
with  reference  to  it  who  had  not  only  never  been  in 
the  City  Temple  themselves,  but  did  not  know  any- 
body who  had.  They  would  write  and  ask  for  an 
appointment  and  make  a  journey  to  see  me  and  tell 
their  story  of  sin,  trouble,  or  perplexity  of  mind. 
This  practice  grew  and  grew  until  at  length  it  had  to 
be  carefully  regulated  and  the  number  of  interviews 
curtailed. 

As  might  be  expected,  many  of  those  who  thus 
sought  an  opportunity  of  discussing  questions  per- 
sonal to  themselves  were  more  self-conscious  than 
earnest,  and  too  much  inclined  to  consider  their  own 
particular  interests  and  experiences  as  of  special  im- 
portance. There  are  many  such  people  in  the  world, 
and  as  a  rule  they  have  no  compunction  in  taking  up  a 
minister's  time,  and  no  conception  of  the  value  of  it. 
Moreover,  they  much  prefer  to  hear  themselves  talk 
to  listening  to  any  ghostly  counsel,  however  mod- 
erate; on,  on,  on  they  will  go  and  nothing  can  stop 
them,  detailing  with  wearisome  minuteness  all  their 
trivial  thoughts  and  feelings,  and  all  their  domestic 
politics  from  the  day  they  began  to  have  any,  declar- 
ing how  unappreciated  they  have  been  and  how  little 
their  merits  have  been  regarded  by  those  about  them. 
As  a  rule  my  sympathies  were  with  the  latter.  Cranks 
innumerable  put  in  an  appearance,  and  the  usual  ar- 


INDIVIDUAL  DEALING  155 


ray  of  impostors — ministers  of  religion  in  general  be- 
ing regarded  as  the  fair  prey  of  these  gentry.  People 
in  financial  difficulties  were  marvelously  directed  by 
the  Lord  to  come  to  me  for  any  sum  varying  from 
five  pounds  to  a  thousand.  I  used  to  feel  it  rather 
unfair  that  the  Lord  did  not  give  me  warning  of  it 
before  they  arrived.  Patentees  of  inventions  who 
could  not  get  a  capitalist  to  listen  to  them  thought 
I  might  be  able  to  pronounce  the  open  sesame  on  their 
behalf.  Budding  geniuses,  poets  especially,  but  all 
sorts  in  the  aggregate,  honored  me  with  their  confi- 
dence and  the  suggestion  that  I  should  go  down  in 
history  as  the  benefactor  who  first  gave  them  a  help- 
ing hand  to  climb  the  ladder  of  fame.  One  young 
man  whose  name  was  Parker  wrote  to  remind  me  that 
my  predecessor  had  made  his  first  start  in  life  as  a 
preacher  by  addressing  himself  to  Dr.  Campbell,  the 
leading  Nonconformist  ecclesiastical  statesman  of  his 
day;  "and,"  he  modestly  added,  "history  is  now  re- 
peating itself ;  once  more  a  Parker  writes  to  a  Camp- 
bell, and  who  knows  what  the  outcome  may  be  for  the 
Kingdom  of  Heaven?"  He  wanted  to  become  my 
assistant  after  the  fashion  of  the  other  Parker  with 
the  other  Campbell.  However,  as  there  was  no  lack 
of  such  offers  and  no  possibility  of  my  availing  myself 
of  any  of  them,  I  declined.  Madmen  sought  me  out 
too,  to  my  no  small  risk  now  and  then.  One  Sunday 
morning  a  homicidal  maniac  quietly  walked  up  the 
pulpit  steps  behind  me,  and  leaning  over  my  shoulder 
whispered,  "I  have  been  specially  sent  by  Almighty 
God  to  kill  you,  Mr.  Campbell,  if  you  do  not  preach 


156      A  SPIRITUAL  PILGRIMAGE 


the  gospel.  I  shall  remain  here  and  listen,  and  if  you 
fail  to  preach  the  gospel  I  will  slay  you  as  a  false 
prophet."  Turning  my  head  round,  I  answered  in  an 
equally  low  voice,  "Go  down  to  the  floor  of  the  church 
at  once."  He  smiled,  bowed,  and  did  so,  keeping  a 
keen  eye  on  me  all  the  time.  I  beckoned  a  sidesman 
up  and  asked  sotto  voce  to  have  him  removed.  With 
difficulty  the  request  was  obeyed,  for  the  fellow  made 
a  furious  fight  once  he  was  got  outside,  but  the  con- 
gregation never  knew  and  the  service  proceeded  with- 
out interruption. 

Another  time  a  well-mannered  gentleman  who  had 
written  for  an  appointment  in  the  ordinary  way  came 
into  my  vestry  and  carefully  shut  the  door  behind 
him.  He  then  explained  that  he  considered  himself 
a  special  instrument  in  God's  hands  for  getting  rid  of 
dangerous  teachers,  and  that  he  thought  of  beginning 
on  me.  He  said  he  was  armed  for  that  purpose,  and 
indeed  I  saw  that  he  carried  a  weapon  of  some  sort 
under  his  coat.  I  asked  him  to  sit  down  and  discuss 
the  matter  quietly,  which  he  did,  continuing  his  dis- 
course with  the  utmost  courtesy.  Meanwhile  I  was 
pressing  with  my  foot  a  bell  which  communicated 
with  the  outer  vestry,  where  the  sexton  or  some  of  the 
office-bearers  were  usually  to  be  found.  But  on  that 
occasion  of  all  occasions  no  one  was  there,  and  I  was 
left  alone  closeted  with  a  lunatic  who  had  come  ex- 
pressly to  murder  me.  I  did  my  best  to  show  him 
that  possibly  he  was  mistaken  in  thinking  that  Heaven 
had  sent  him  to  the  City  Temple  for  his  first  victim, 
and  I  recommended  a  number  of  other,  in  my  judg- 


INDIVIDUAL  DEALING  157 


ment,  far  more  dangerous  speakers  and  writers  to 
whom  he  might  pay  a  visit,  such  as  Mr.  Bernard 
Shaw,  Mr.  Roosevelt,  Mr.  Lloyd  George,  and  a  few 
more.  I  nearly  brought  on  the  climax  by  mentioning 
Mr.  Lloyd  George,  for  it  appeared  he  was  beneath 
my  visitor's  contempt,  never  having  touched  a  serious 
subject  in  his  life  and  being  prone  to  the  use  of 
unclassical  language.  I  suggested  Mr.  Winston 
Churchill  as  a  substitute,  and  he  seemed  better  satis- 
fied. In  the  end  he  decided  to  give  me  another  chance, 
and  went  off  with  a  friendly  warning  on  his  lips. 
From  the  hour  that  the  theologians  began  to  cudgel 
me  I  had  a  continuous  procession  of  such  not  very 
pleasant  interviewers,  though  few  who  meant  business 
quite  as  determinedly  as  this  one.  They  came  and 
went  with  the  theological  storm — in  fact  they  were 
theologians  themselves  to  a  man.  As  time  went  on  I 
had  to  secure  protection  against  them  all  by  having 
an  official  appointed  whose  duty  it  was  to  guard  the 
door  of  my  sanctum  and  thin  out  the  callers,  only 
letting  in  those  of  whose  bona  fides  he  felt  reasonably 
assured. 

But,  setting  aside  all  that  was  merely  tiresome  or 
useless  in  the  time  thus  expended  in  the  granting  of 
private  interviews,  I  cannot  but  feel  in  retrospect  that 
this  side  of  my  ministry  was  as  fruitful  as  any.  I  am 
inclined  to  think  that  I  did  as  much  in  this  way  as 
from  the  pulpit,  though  that  is  a  matter  concerning 
which  only  God  knows  the  truth.  It  taught  me  much. 
I  see  now  the  value  of  the  confessional  as  an  institu- 
tion, though  I  cannot  go  so  far  as  to  agree  with  my 


158      A  SPIRITUAL  PILGRIMAGE 


Catholic  friends  in  the  Church  of  England  that  the 
practice  of  confession  ought  to  be  compulsory  and 
universal  as  in  the  Church  of  Rome,  and  that  none 
should  be  admitted  to  Holy  Communion  without 
undergoing  it  as  a  sacrament  and  receiving  absolu- 
tion. That  is  a  different  matter,  and  further  experi- 
ence of  its  working  may  lead  me  to  modify  my  present 
view,  but  I  do  not  think  so.  "There  are  diversities  of 
gifts  but  the  same  Spirit."  Not  everyone  has  the  con- 
fessor's gift  any  more  than  everyone  has  the  preach- 
er's, and  to  make  confession  a  quasi-mechanical 
process  in  which  a  priest  perhaps  knows  little  of  the 
deep  workings  of  the  human  heart  and  has  but  little 
natural  sympathy,  or  in  which  the  penitent  reels  off  a 
patter  of  formal  acknowledgments  of  wrongdoing, 
can  hardly  tend  to  edification.  Then,  too,  I  should 
think  it  extremely  undesirable  to  set  mere  boys  in 
Holy  Orders  to  hear  the  confessions  of  women.  But 
this  is  an  aside — I  must  stick  to  my  own  story  and  the 
giving  of  my  own  testimony.  There  is  that  in  human 
nature,  and  in  some  characters  more  than  others, 
which  finds  relief  in  uttering  to  human  ears  that  which 
must  ordinarily  be  kept  between  the  soul  and  God. 
The  mere  act  of  telling  is  a  help  and  at  the  same  time 
a  searching  of  motives  and  culpability,  and  if  this 
craving  were  to  find  no  outlet  there  would  be  many 
thousands  of  our  fellow-creatures  condemned  to  bear 
in  secret  a  burden  which  grows  heavier  with  the  years. 
The  longing  for  the  word  of  authority,  the  word  of 
comfort  and  release,  from  the  lips  of  God's  minister 
is  a  longing  which  cannot  be  ignored  and  ought  not 


INDIVIDUAL  DEALING  159 


to  be  denied.  "Let  a  man  so  account  of  us  as  of 
ministers  of  Christ  and  stewards  of  the  mysteries  of 
God."  There  are,  I  am  afraid,  many  more  ministers 
of  Christ  than  stewards  of  the  mysteries  of  God. 
It  is  wonderful  how  few  people  there  are  in  the 
world  to  whom  we  can  open  our  hearts  freely,  how 
few  to  whom  we  would  dare  to  humiliate  ourselves  by 
admission  of  weakness  and  failure,  how  few  to  listen 
and  understand.  It  is  rare  indeed  to  find  a  person 
who  can  hear  a  story  concerning  another's  fall  from 
purity  and  truth  and  be  as  though  he  heard  it  not,  rare 
to  come  upon  one  who  knows  the  dark  points  in  a 
friend's  history  and  respects  that  friend  as  much  as 
before.  Somehow  we  are  apt  to  look  upon  a  man  with 
other  eyes  the  moment  we  discover  anything  in  his 
past  inconsistent  with  the  ideal  we  had  formed  of 
him ;  he  drops  in  our  esteem  thereby ;  and  yet  he  may 
be  all  we  formerly  thought  him,  all  the  more  so,  per- 
haps, because  of  the  fires  of  affliction  through  which 
he  has  passed  in  atoning  for  his  transgression  or  for  so 
much  of  it  as  he  can.  The  sinner  is  well  advised  in 
shielding  his  soul  when  possible,  not  only  from  the 
unkindly  scrutiny  of  his  fellow-sinners,  but  from  that 
same  scrutiny  when  not  intentionally  uncharitable. 

Yet  there  is  the  need.  The  remorseful  erring  one 
wants  to  bare  his  heart,  wants  to  hear  human  lips  pro- 
nounce in  God's  name  the  good  tidings  of  pardon  and 
peace,  wants  encouragement,  direction,  moral  guid- 
ance. And  sometimes  he  wants  all  this  in  an  imper- 
sonal way,  as  it  were.  People  have  sometimes  come 
to  me  at  the  City  Temple  from  a  long  distance,  even 


160      A  SPIRITUAL  PILGRIMAGE 


as  far  as  America,  simply  and  solely  because  they 
did  not  wish  to  tell  any  minister  near  at  home  what 
they  longed  to  tell  somebody  somewhere  about  the 
tragedies  of  their  inner  life.  They  preferred  to  give 
me  no  clew  to  their  identity,  but  merely  came,  held 
the  conversation,  and  went  away  again,  and  I  saw 
them  no  more.  Sometimes,  but  rarely,  I  was  able  to 
induce  them,  when  I  thought  it  advisable,  to  go  to 
their  own  clergj^man  on  their  return  and  make  a  clean 
breast  of  the  whole  matter.  When  a  Roman  or  High 
Anglican  penitent  came  to  me  I  did  this  as  a  rule, 
knowing  that  no  harm  could  come  of  it,  and  that  the 
seal  of  the  confessional  was  enough  to  preserve  their 
confidence  from  misuse.  Where  shame  was  a  factor 
in  the  case  one  often  had  to  insist  upon  the  duty  of 
making  a  frank  avowal  to  the  parties  most  immedi- 
ately concerned.  In  a  very  large  proportion  of  cases 
I  noted  that  the  principal  reason  for  choosing  me  as 
the  repository  of  the  confidence  was  precisely  that  I 
did  not  know  the  speaker  or  anything  of  his  antece- 
dents. 

Taken  all  together,  I  think  I  have  probably  heard 
as  many  confessions  as  most  Anglican  or  Roman 
priests,  though  of  course  I  never  professed  to  give 
absolution  in  the  sacerdotal  sense.  And  I  should 
think  I  have  heard  as  many  sad  and  heartbreaking 
stories  as  any  man  living.  I  never  go  by  appearances 
now:  anything  may  be  true  of  anybody.  From  the 
highest  to  the  lowest  in  the  social  scale  I  found  much 
the  same  thing,  and  the  same  kind  of  moral  complica- 
tion occurred  over  and  over  again.   Sickening  abnor- 


INDIVIDUAL  DEALING  161 


malities  came  my  way  and  griefs  manifold  for  which 
there  could  be  no  cure  in  this  world,  nothing  but  the 
tender  compassion  of  the  "High  Priest  touched  with 
the  feeling  of  our  infirmities."  But  on  the  whole — I 
say  it  solemnly  and  deliberately — I  look  back  upon 
that  long  and  valuable  experience,  not  only  with  a 
feeling  of  profound  humility  in  regard  to  my  own 
shortcomings,  but  with  one  of  enhanced  respect  for 
poor,  struggling,  aspiring  humanity.  If  we  could 
know  more  of  each  other's  temptations  and  trials, 
hopes  and  fears,  secret  efforts,  defeats,  and  self-re- 
proach, loneliness  and  tears,  we  should  be  more  spar- 
ing in  our  censures  and  more  ready  with  our  help  and 
trust. 

But,  let  me  repeat,  comparatively  little  of  this  per- 
sonal dealing  with  souls  had  a  definitely  theological 
bearing.  It  was  pathological  in  the  spiritual  sense 
rather  than  theological.  This  may  seem  very  strange 
to  certain  clergy  of  my  acquaintance,  both  Anglican 
and  Nonconformist,  to  whom  ministering  to  troubled 
anxious  hearts  is  synonymous  with  the  inculcation  of 
doctrine.  So  it  is,  perhaps,  but  the  fact  must  not  be 
obvious.  The  doctrine  must  be  as  humanly  presented 
as  possible,  and  not  too  much  of  it.  I  can  only  speak 
as  I  found,  and  I  should  think  not  one  penitent  in  a 
hundred  ever  asked  me  a  question  about  the  doctrinal 
basis  of  the  sermons  from  which  they  had  received 
help  or  which  had  brought  them  to  see  me.  What  in- 
fluenced them  was  to  find  themselves  understood,  or 
to  realize — often  to  their  astonishment — that  their 
particular  moral  problem  was  by  no  means  unique. 


162      A  SPIRITUAL  PILGRIMAGE 


Then  the  surgery  was  applied,  or  the  healing  as  the 
ease  might  be.  For  sin  I  had  but  one  remedy  then  as 
now:  the  infinite  love  of  Christ.  Right  the  wrong  as 
far  as  you  can,  I  used  to  say,  and  leave  the  rest  to  God. 
As  a  rule  the  very  point  was  to  know  how  to  right  the 
wrong.  Also  persons  who  were  inclined  to  blame  oth- 
ers for  their  misfortunes  had  sometimes  to  be  made  to 
see  themselves  as  they  really  were,  and  this  was  no 
easy  task  with  the  majority  of  them.  And  deeply 
wronged  people,  living  under  conditions  of  almost  in- 
credible hardship  and  heartbreaking  cruelty,  would 
come  to  ask  what  their  duty  was,  and  again  and  again 
I  found  it  difficult  to  tell  them.  It  is  not  so  easy  to 
see  the  right' thing  in  all  eventualities  as  is  frequently 
imagined ;  duty  is  sometimes  easier  to  do  than  to  dis- 
cover. 

The  world  knew  nothing  of  this  ministry.  I  never 
mentioned  it,  exacting  though  it  was  but  very  blessed 
too.  It  went  on  by  its  own  momentum,  and  still  does 
to  some  extent  notwithstanding  my  withdrawal  from 
the  central  position  where  it  was  formerly  exercised. 

By  and  by  the  underground  rumblings  concerning 
my  theological  liberalism,  which  had  been  audible 
from  the  moment  of  my  arrival  in  London,  grew  rap- 
idly louder.  Matters  came  to  a  head  swiftly  after  an 
address  which  I  gave  to  the  London  Board  of  Con- 
gregational Ministers  in  September,  1906,  on  the 
"Changing  Sanctions  of  Popular  Theology."  The 
occasion  was  private,  but  a  religious  newspaper  pub- 
lished the  subject  of  my  address  together  with  the 
principal  points  thereof,  and  gave  some  account  of 


RELIGIOUS  CONTROVERSY  103 


the  commotion  it  had  caused.  A  second  meeting  was 
devoted  to  discussion  of  the  issues  raised.  This  also 
was  in  camera,  but  as  the  information  had  leaked  out 
in  the  manner  aforesaid  that  wigs  were  to  be  on  the 
green,  there  was  a  packed  attendance  of  ministers  en- 
titled to  be  present.  There  is  no  need  to  recapitulate 
what  followed,  as  it  was  merely  an  anticipation  of  the 
fiercer  outbreak  of  a  few  months  ahead.  But  that 
meeting  was  really  the  commencement  of  the  new 
theology  controversy,  which  is  therefore  almost  ex- 
actly ten  years  old.  At  the  beginning  of  January, 
1907,  it  suddenly  blazed  in  the  daily  Press,  and  from 
that  day  forward  became  a  ceaseless  hail  of  criticism 
and  abuse,  directed  upon  my  devoted  head.  It  con- 
tinued for  a  considerable  time  with  undiminished  bit- 
terness, though  the  secular  Press  of  course  dropped  it 
except  for  occasional  allusions  after  the  first  few 
months  or  so.  I  prefer  to  draw  a  veil  over  this  period 
of  my  life;  I  have  no  pleasure  in  looking  back  upon 
it,  and  there  can  be  no  good  in  raking  up  old  sores.  I 
was  forthwith  excluded  from  active  participation  in 
the  affairs  of  organized  Nonconformity  and  never 
afterwards  resumed  it.  It  is  to  be  regretted  that  those 
chiefly  responsible  for  this  policy  and  all  that  accrued 
therefrom  did  not  choose  a  more  excellent  way,  but  it 
is  too  late  to  talk  about  that  now. 

In  March,  1907,  I  made  my  last  appearance  on  the 
platform  of  the  National  Free  Church  Council.  Vari- 
ous hints  had  been  given  to  me  from  official  quarters 
not  to  go,  but  as  this  would  have  been  tantamount  to 
declaring  that  I  did  not  want  to  associate  myself  with 


164      A  SPIRITUAL  PILGRIMAGE 


my  Nonconformist  brethren,  and  as  no  straightfor- 
ward indication  was  given  me  that  my  presence  was 
undesired,  I  felt  that  the  onus  of  a  rupture  of  rela- 
tions ought  not  to  be  placed  upon  me,  so  I  kept  my 
appointment  and  went.  It  is  a  matter  of  satisfaction 
to  me  today  to  recall  that  my  speech  on  that  occasion 
was  on  Christian  unity,  and  that  I  pleaded  earnestly 
for  a  rapprochement  with  the  Established  Church. 
What  I  suggested  was  that  an  eff ort  should  be  made 
to  hold  the  Church  Congress  and  the  Free  Church 
Congress  together  at  least  once.  I  pointed  out  that  the 
programs  of  the  two  assemblies  were  nearly  similar 
with  the  exception  of  a  few  debatable  subjects,  and 
urged  that  the  direct  and  indirect  gains  of  such  a  mode 
of  exhibiting  our  common  Christianity  would  be  enor- 
mous. I  still  think  so.  Our  diff erences  are  less  likely 
to  be  composed  by  academic  discussions  than  by  per- 
sonal touch ;  and  the  mere  fact  that  the  two  great  reli- 
gious bodies  into  which  this  country  is  divided  could 
meet  in  common  session  and  join  in  acts  of  common 
worship  would  greatly  impress  the  national  conscious- 
ness and  have  far-reaching  results  for  good.  The  dif- 
ficulties in  arranging  it  could  be  got  over  if  we  really 
wanted  to  do  it.  I  think  I  could  sing  my  Nunc  Di- 
mittis  with  a  cheerful  heart  if  I  could  live  to  see  it  an 
accomplished  fact,  for  I  should  know  what  must  in- 
evitably follow. 

What  I  chiefly  regret  in  connection  with  this  period 
is  that  I  attempted  a  reply  to  my  critics  by  writing  the 
book  known  as  the  New  Theology.  If  I  had  let  the 
subject  alone  the  controversy  might  soon  have  died 


RELIGIOUS  CONTROVERSY  165 


down ;  as  it  was  I  but  added  fuel  to  the  flame  and  gave 
the  odium  theologicum  something  to  feed  upon,  be- 
sides causing  widespread  misunderstanding  as  to  the 
real  nature  of  my  ministry.  I  forgot  or  failed  to  take 
into  account  the  fact  that  there  were  tens  of  thousands 
of  good  people  who  had  no  direct  acquaintance  with 
the  latter,  and  who  would  therefore  naturally  form 
their  judgment  of  its  character  by  the  controversial 
atmosphere  in  which  it  was  suddenly  presented  to  their 
notice.  I  am  perfectly  willing  to  be  judged  by  the 
wholeness  of  my  pulpit  utterances  during  the  many 
years  that  I  have  been  a  preacher  with  the  sole  excep- 
tion of  this  period  of  disputation  and  cross  purposes. 
I  am  thankful  to  be  able  to  say  that  I  have  never  made 
a  personal  attack  upon  any  man  in  my  life,  but  this 
unfortunate  controversy  made  me  the  object  of  per- 
sonal attacks  of  the  most  virulent  description  from  the 
day  my  book  appeared.  I  believe  there  are  many  peo- 
ple who  think  that  the  controversy  began  through 
my  writing  the  book.  That  is  an  entire  mistake;  it 
was  the  controversy  that  called  it  forth.  It  was  much 
too  hastily  written,  was  crude  and  uncompromising 
in  statement,  polemical  in  spirit,  and  gave  a  totally 
wrong  impression  of  the  quality  of  the  sermons  de- 
livered week  by  week  from  the  City  Temple  pulpit. 
Some  of  my  staunchest  friends  and  supporters  quickly 
perceived  this  and  wanted  a  supplementary  volume 
issued,  but  I  felt  convinced  that  that  would  not  serve 
to  correct  the  misconception  in  so  far  as  it  existed. 
Could  not  something  be  done,  they  argued,  to  let  the 
outside  public  see  that  my  ministry  was  a  spiritual 


• 


166      A  SPIRITUAL  PILGRIMAGE 


ministry  and  anything  but  disputatious  in  tone  ?  Per- 
haps they  were  right,  but  nothing  was  done,  and  I 
should  not  be  surprised  to  learn  that  there  are  many 
even  among  liberal-minded  Christians  who  to  this  day 
believe  my  pulpit  style  to  be  like  that  of  the  New 
Theology,  on  the  intellectual  rather  than  the  spiritual 
plane,  and  argumentative  rather  than  expositoiy  or 
hortatory.  I  have  had  some  amusing  examples  of  this 
on  occasion.  People  hearing  me  for  the  first  time 
often  seem  to  expect  a  Boanerges  in  the  pulpit,  and 
are  quite  surprised  to  find  a  speaker  who  indulges  in 
no  flowers  of  rhetoric  and  whom  they  have  to  sit  very 
still  to  hear  at  all.  It  might  have  occurred  to  some  of 
my  antagonists  that  there  must  be  something  in  my 
teaching  other  than  a  supposed  series  of  theological 
innovations  and  assaults  upon  venerable  doctrines  or 
I  could  not  have  retained  the  loyalty  of  my  congre- 
gation. No  congregation  will  long  submit  to  be  fed 
on  negatives;  people  who  come  to  church  regularly 
come  for  spiritual  help,  and  if  they  do  not  get  it  they 
will  not  come  long.  Saints  of  God  like  the  late  Lord 
Radstock,  a  simple-minded  orthodox  evangelical  of 
the  old  school,  frankly  admitted  this.  After  a  visit  to 
the  City  Temple  that  good  man  publicly  stated  that 
he  felt  the  place  to  be  full  of  the  Holy  Ghost.  Those 
who  were  most  determined  and  persistent  in  their  pub- 
lic opposition  to  my  work  were  those  who  knew  little 
or  nothing  about  it  at  first  hand.  Not  a  few  deemed 
themselves  qualified  to  pronounce  upon  it,  and  to 
maintain  unalterably  an  attitude  of  hostility  towards 
it,  who  had  never  read  a  line  of  my  book  or  my  pub- 


RELIGIOUS  CONTROVERSY  167 


lished  sermons,  and  who  had  never  either  seen  me  or 
heard  me  preach.  Such  is  more  or  less  the  way  of  the 
world,  and  the  mode  in  which  prejudices  are  nursed 
in  all  departments  of  life  and  thought. 

It  might  surprise  some  of  these  people  to  be  told 
what  was  in  the  book  they  so  unreservedly  condemned. 
It  was  commonly  assumed,  for  instance,  that  it  was  a 
Unitarian  tract.  It  was  nothing  of  the  kind.  Neither 
was  it  pantheistic  in  the  historic  sense  of  the  term,  al-. 
though  the  Monism  it  advocated  was  pressed  much 
too  far.  It  did  not  deny  the  divinity  of  our  Lord;  on 
the  contrary  it  asserted  that  all  that  had  been  authori- 
tatively affirmed  of  His  person  by  the  Christian 
Church  was  true.1  It  identified  the  Jesus  of  history 
with  the  Christ  of  faith  while  insisting  upon  the  true 
human  consciousness  of  the  former.2  It  declared  that 
the  ancient  formulated  and  authoritative  expressions 
of  belief  known  as  the  creeds  were  fundamentally  true 
though  couched  in  a  different  mental  dialect  from  ours 
of  today,  citing  particularly  the  Athanasian  Creed  in 
illustration  of  this.3  It  did  not  throw  over  the  miracu- 
lous as  so  many  people  have  erroneously  fancied;  it 
did  the  opposite ;  it  maintained  the  coming  rehabilita- 
tion of  miracle  at  the  hands  of  modern  science.  It 
even  expressed  confidence  in  the  historicity  of  the 
physical  resurrection  of  Christ,4  much  to  the  disgust 
of  many  religious  liberals  who  tried  hard  to  convince 

1  Chap,  vii,  p.  94. 

2  Ibid.,  et  v.  and  vi. 

3  Ibid.,  Chap,  v,  p.  72. 

*  Chap,  xii,  p.  218  et  seq. 


168      A  SPIRITUAL  PILGRIMAGE 

me  that  this  statement  gave  away  the  whole  case  for  a 
liberal  theology.  It  showed  the  necessity  for  the  doc- 
trine of  the  Trinity.1  Judging  by  my  correspondence 
I  feel  sure  that  many  who  distrusted  my  teaching  were 
unaware  of  the  above  facts. 

The  faults  of  the  book  are  to  be  sought  in  a  differ- 
ent direction.  First,  in  pressing  the  monistic  basis  of 
its  restatement  of  doctrine  so  far  as  to  imperil  per- 
sonality altogether  and  confusing  human  and  divine. 
This  led  to  the  further  consequence,  in  theory  at  least, 
of  weakening  the  sense  of  moral  responsibility.  Its 
negative  view  of  evil  was  much  misunderstood.  It 
was  thought  to  deny  the  reality  of  sin,  which  it  did 
not,  or  at  any  rate  was  not  meant  to  do.  It  endeavored 
too  much  to  give  a  rationalistic  treatment  of  the  great 
mysteries  of  the  faith.  In  fact,  as  Hooker  says,2  and 
as  my  book  exemplified,  the  root  of  heresy  is  the 
attempt  to  rationalize  what  cannot  be  rationalized,  but 
must  remain  mystery  without  outraging  reason.  Its 
omissions  were  serious,  notably  in  its  explication  of  the 
doctrine  of  Atonement.  Most  of  what  was  said  about 
this  great  aspect  of  Christian  truth  was  sound  enough 
as  far  as  it  went,  but  what  was  not  said  was  by  far  the 
most  important  element  in  the  doctrine.  I  may  be 
mistaken,  but  I  believe  it  was  this  more  than  anything 
else,  this  inadequate  view  of  the  sacrifice  of  the  cross, 
which  caused  the  alarm  in  orthodox  circles.  Further- 
more, and  as  a  direct  outcome  of  the  failure  to  put  the 
Incarnation  and  the  Atonement  in  their  true  setting, 

1  Chap,  vi,  p.  85  et  seq. 
2Ecc.  PoL,  Book  V,  chap.  lii. 


RELIGIOUS  CONTROVERSY  169 


the  Church  and  the  sacraments  were  relegated  to  a 
subordinate  and  utterly  unhistoric  position. 

It  should  be  remembered  that  the  book  was  writ- 
ten ad  populum,  of  necessity  so,  and  suffered  some- 
what on  that  account.  But  it  was  badly  proportioned, 
and  was  marked  by  the  capital  defect  that  the  gospel 
it  had  to  offer,  though  strenuous  enough  in  its  de- 
mands upon  the  higher  side  of  human  nature,  con- 
tained no  radical  cure  for  the  lower.  It  was,  too,  a 
break  with  history,  and  that  is  always  fatal.  But  a 
further  examination  of  its  tendencies  and  how  they 
came  to  be  modified  will  be  given  in  the  next  chapter. 


CHAPTER  VIII 

THE  NEW  THEOLOGY 

The  replies  to  my  book  were  legion,  but  one  in 
particular  ought  to  be  mentioned  because  of  the 
effect  it  had  indirectly  in  sending  me  anew  to  the 
sources  whence  its  author  derived  the  chief  inspiration 
of  his  own  religious  life.  I  refer  to  the  New  The- 
ology and  the  Old  Religion  by  Dr.  Gore,  then  Bishop 
of  Birmingham.  The  book  consisted  of  eight  lectures 
delivered  in  Birmingham  Cathedral,  and  was  issued 
in  the  autumn  of  1907.  It  is  strange  to  me  to  reflect 
that  these  lectures  were  originally  spoken  from  the 
pulpit  wherein  I  now  stand,  and  by  the  man  who 
eight  years  later  was  to  receive  me  afresh  into  the 
communion  of  the  Church  of  England.  Wondrous 
are  the  ways  of  God.  Dr.  Gore  sent  me  the  book 
with  a  courteous  letter  expressing  the  hope  that  he 
had  not  misrepresented  me  in  any  way,  or  failed  in 
the  respect  due  to  my  sincerity  and  spiritual  influence. 
I  have  since  had  reason  to  know  that  these  were  not 
random  words ;  the  writer  had  taken  pains  to  inform 
himself  all  along  as  to  the  general  character  of  my 
ministry,  and  regularly  read  the  paper  which  pub- 
lished the  greater  number  of  my  sermons.  His  book 
was  expressly  a  criticism  of  Sir  Oliver  Lodge's  views 

170 


THE  NEW  THEOLOGY  171 


as  well  as  mine;  he  bracketed  both  under  the  same 
title.  His  evident  desire  to  treat  us  fairly  and  even 
appreciatively,  as  far  as  he  reasonably  could,  was 
illustrated  in  the  closing  words  of  the  first  lecture: 

To  any  doubter,  then,  whom  I  can  reach  who  is  supposed 
to  refer  for  his  doubts  to  the  authority  of  the  New  Theology, 
I  would  say  first  of  all:  You  are  rejecting  what  these  men 
reject,  but  are  you  believing  what  they  believe?  After  all, 
if  you  hold  and  practice  the  creed  which  has  just  been 
quoted,  you  will  not  be  indeed  in  the  full  stream  of  the 
Church's  belief,  but  you  will  at  least  be  within  sight  of  the 
city  of  God. 

If  I  may  say  so,  the  book  was  not  an  argument;  it 
was  an  exposition.  Being  intended  for  the  general 
churchgoing  public,  it  put  the  case  as  simply  as  pos- 
sible and  without  unnecessary  verbiage.  All  it  did 
was  to  set  what  its  author  took  to  be  the  positions  of 
the  exponents  of  the  new  theology  side  by  side  with 
the  affirmations  of  the  old  and  leave  them  to  make 
their  own  impression.  It  did  misrepresent  me  a 
little,  as  was  inevitable.  For  example,  it  assumed 
throughout  that  I  ignored  the  transcendence  of  God 
and  was  inclined  to  identify  Him  with  His  universe. 
I  never  did  that;  I  was  not  a  sufficiently  thorough- 
going Spinozist  to  fall  into  such  an  error.  But  I 
do  not  wonder  that  Dr.  Gore  thought  so.  The  whole 
emphasis  of  my  book  and  many  of  my  contemporary 
sermons  had  been  thrown  in  that  direction.  And  he 
was  on  unassailable  ground  when  he  went  on  to  point 
out  that  in  history  this  conception  of  the  being  of 


172      A  SPIRITUAL  PILGRIMAGE 


God  and  its  relation  to  the  world  has  shown  itself 
to  be  comparatively  weak  in  awakening  moral  effort 
and  enthusiasm.  And,  as  he  also  added,  it  was  with 
the  Hebraic  conception  of  God  as  righteous,  perfect, 
self-sufficient,  and  all-complete,  transcending  His 
own  creation,  that  moral  lift  came  to  the  human  race, 
culminating  in  the  work  and  person  of  Jesus  Christ. 
This  was  a  simple  fact;  there  was  no  denying  it. 
"By  their  fruits  ye  shall  know  them."  It  was  not 
Dr.  Gore's  book  which  caused  me  to  face  this  fact; 
I  had  already  been  conscious  of  it  as  some  of  my 
pulpit  utterances  show ;  but  it  compelled  me  to  visual- 
ize honestly  and  persistently  the  practical  issue  it 
raised  and  try  to  find  a  way  through  it.  And  I  did 
not  find  it.  It  was  not  till  I  ultimately  came  to  accept 
frankly  and  ex  animo  the  Catholic  view  of  the  mystery 
of  the  divine  being  that  I  arrived  at  settlement  and 
satisfaction  on  the  point  above  described. 

Further,  the  Bishop  was  right  in  insisting  that, 
wittingly  or  unwittingly,  my  view  of  the  nature  of 
sin  would  tend  to  make  men  think  more  lightly  of  it. 
By  speaking  of  it  as  the  remains  of  the  ape  and  tiger 
quality  in  our  ascending  humanity  we  belittle  its 
tragedy,  its  terribleness,  its  ever-present  menace. 
What  is  more — these  are  my  words,  not  Dr.  Gore's 
— we  fail  in  arousing  that  deep  sense  of  contrition 
which  is  a  prerequisite  of  the  highest  types  of  holi- 
ness. It  does  not  sufficiently  emphasize  individual 
responsibility,  the  fact  that  the  seat  of  transgression 
is  in  the  perverted  will,  and  that  the  disorder  of  crea- 
tion proceeds  from  the  soul  of  man  outward  rather 


THE  NEW  THEOLOGY  173 


than  from  without  inward.  This  was  another  grave 
defect  of  my  book,  a  defect  not  so  easily  traceable  in 
my  sermons;  for  I  had  never  failed  to  appeal  to  the 
guilty  conscience  in  my  preaching  or  to  warn  my 
hearers  against  trifling  with  the  laws  of  God.  In  so 
doing  I  appealed  definitely  to  the  will  of  the  sinner 
and  sought  to  induce  repentance,  a  procedure  not 
easy  to  justify  logically  from  my  own  premises.  It 
was  an  illustration  of  Mr.  Picton's  dictum  that,  be 
the  philosophy  what  it  may,  things  remain  eth- 
ically the  same  as  before.  In  practice  my  view  of 
sin  was  serious  enough;  in  theory  it  was  not.  This 
poor  sad  world  of  ours  needs  a  more  strenuous 
gospel  than  the  assurance  that  our  sins  are  merely 
wrong  turnings  on  the  upward  road,  and  that  all 
must  inevitably  come  right  at  last.  As  I  more  than 
once  remarked  from  the  pulpit  in  my  most  latitudi- 
narian  days,  there  is  nothing  automatic  about  the 
process  of  man's  redemption.  Once  again  I  have  to 
agree  with  Dr.  Gore  through  my  own  practical  ex- 
perience as  a  Christian  minister,  the  value  of  the 
seriousness  of  the  traditional  Christian  view  of  sin 
lies  in  its  moral  efT ects.  Nothing  that  minimizes  that 
value  can  fairly  claim  to  be  true  to  the  facts  of 
human  nature  and  history. 

But  it  is  in  regard  to  the  person  of  Christ  that,  as 
Dr.  Gore  shows  in  the  lecture  on  the  meaning  of 
our  Lord's  divinity,  the  new  theology  at  once  comes 
nearest  to  and  diverges  farthest  from  the  old.  He 
says  on  page  85  of  the  book  aforesaid:  "This  doc- 
trine of  the  eternal  divine  man  would  not  require 


174      A  SPIRITUAL  PILGRIMAGE 


much  restatement  to  be  brought  into  harmony  with 
the  Church  doctrine  of  the  Eternal  Word  or  Son." 
But  on  the  following  page  he  adds:  "It  is  plain 
that  such  an  idea  of  the  incarnation  as  is  here  pre- 
sented"— that  is,  the  idea  that  every  human  life  is 
in  a  degree  an  incarnation  of  the  divine — "while  it 
has  in  it  much  that  is  very  close  to  the  biblical  idea, 
is  at  the  root  fundamentally  different."  The  differ- 
ence, according  to  the  Bishop,  was  that  it  destroyed 
the  saviorhood  of  Christ  in  any  real  sense.  I  doubt 
if  that  was  ever  quite  true  of  my  system,  as  it  cer- 
tainly was  not  true  of  my  pulpit  application  of  it. 
I  always  held  firmly  to  the  view  that  the  Jesus  of 
history  and  the  Christ  of  faith  were  one,  and  the 
latter  I  preached  as  savior  as  emphatically  as  any 
orthodox  Christian  could  desire.  Moreover,  He  was 
my  own  savior,  and  I  could  not  do  without  Him; 
to  take  Him  out  of  my  spiritual  life  would  have  been 
to  pluck  the  sun  out  of  the  sky.  But  the  danger  was 
in  asserting  without  qualification  that  all  that  was 
true  of  Him  was  potentially  true  of  every  human  be- 
ing. I  could  say  that  now  in  such  terms  as  not  to 
derogate  from  His  sovereign  rights  in  any  particu- 
lar or  claim  too  much  for  the  race,  but  I  should  put 
it  very  differently  from  the  way  in  which  I  put  it 
then.  It  is  our  inheritance  in  Him  and  not  other- 
wise. So  far  as  I  am  aware  no  one  has  pointed  out 
the  fact — perhaps  it  is  that  I  have  not  come  across 
it — that  it  was  the  Eutychian  tendency  in  my  state- 
ment of  the  doctrine  of  the  person  of  Christ  which 
fwas  its  greatest  defect.    It  could  not  accurately  be 


THE  NEW  THEOLOGY  175 


described  as  Arian,  for  it  did  assert  the  eternity  of  the 
creative  Word;  neither  was  it  Macedonian,  for  it  did 
not  discriminate  between  Son  and  Spirit  in  such  wise 
as  to  reduce  the  latter  to  an  impersonal  emanation 
from  Deity;  nor  was  it  Apollinarian,  for  it  did  not 
make  divinity  swallow  up  humanity;  rather  it  sought 
to  view  the  latter  always  in  the  light  of  the  former. 
Sabellian  of  course  it  never  was,  though  it  was  often 
accused  of  being  so,  and  in  the  hands  of  some  of  its 
professed  advocates  was  often  distorted  into  the  sem- 
blance thereof. 

Dr.  Gore  gave  me  credit  for  being  more  friendly 
to  the  miraculous,  especially  in  relation  to  our  Lord, 
than  other  representatives  of  the  new  theology  move- 
ment. But  when  he  went  on  to  quote  Professor 
Harnack  and  Professor  Percy  Gardner  in  illustra- 
tion of  the  widespread  modern  disbelief  in  miracles, 
with  the  qualified  exception  of  miracles  of  healing, 
in  the  New  Testament  or  out  of  it,  he  might  have  said 
"than  liberal  Protestants  at  large."  For  the  tendency 
he  thus  noted,  to  be  distrustful  of  supernatural  inter- 
ferences with  the  ordinary  ways  of  nature,  is  a  feature 
of  liberalism  in  general  and  not  of  any  one  school  in 
particular.  I  was  convinced  ten  years  ago,  as  I  am 
now,  that  this  tendency  will  be  reversed  by  and  by. 

I  have  thus  singled  out  Dr.  Gore's  book  for  refer- 
ence, not  because  it  was  or  professed  to  be  a  profound 
treatise  on  the  general  subject  of  systematic  theology, 
but  because  it  led  me  to  face  the  above-mentioned 
difficulties  with  new  earnestness.  The  deep  respect 
I  have  felt  for  its  author  ever  since  my  Oxford  days 


176      A  SPIRITUAL  PILGRIMAGE 


and  the  gentle  and  kindly  spirit  in  which  he  ap- 
proached me  at  this  trying  time  had  their  immediate 
effect.  The  latter  was  in  such  marked  contrast  with 
the  harshness  with  which  I  was  being  treated  in  cer- 
tain ultra-orthodox  evangelical  quarters  that  I  was 
deeply  touched  thereby.1  It  made  me  read  the  book 
with  close  attention,  and  sent  me  back  to  the  conscien- 
tious study  of  the  author's  theological  works  in  gen- 
eral. In  particular  I  reread  his  Bampton  Lectures 
on  The  Incarnation  of  tJie  Son  of  God,  with  which  I 
had  first  made  acquaintance  as  an  undergraduate  at  or 

1  Other  instances  of  this  generosity  of  spirit  might  be  cited, 
but  one  in  particular  lives  in  my  memory,  to  which  I  hope  it  may 
not  be  out  of  place  to  give  recognition  here.  I  had  long  been  on 
friendly  terms  with  the  Bishop  of  London,  and  it  had  been  his 
habit  to  invite  me  to  come  and  see  him  from  time  to  time.  After 
the  new  theology  controversy  began  I  wondered  if  he  would  find 
it  inexpedient  to  continue  this.  Not  at  all:  the  invitation  came 
just  the  same  in  due  course.  It  so  happened  that  on  the  day  I 
went  to  Fulham  in  response  thereto  I  had  been  subjected  to  what 
I  then  felt  to  be  an  unjustifiable  series  of  affronts  at  the  hands 
of  prominent  Nonconformists  who  should  have  known  better, 
and  was  rather  sore  in  consequence.  The  Bishop  came  out 
to  meet  me,  slipped  his  arm  through  mine  in  his  customary 
brotherly  fashion,  and  began  at  once  to  talk  about  the  situation. 
"I  should  like  you  to  know,"  he  observed,  "that  I  am  occasionally 
obliged  to  criticize  your  views  in  public;  people  often  question 
me  about  them;  but  I  never  offer  any  such  criticism  without  first 
telling  those  present  that  we  are  personal  friends  and  that  I  have 
a  high  regard  and  esteem  for  you."  I  was  so  deeply  moved  that 
I  could  not  make  any  answer,  and  my  kind-hearted  host  must  have 
thought  me  strangely  wanting  in  appreciation  of  the  purport  of 
his  words. 


THE  NEW  THEOLOGY  177 


soon  after  the  time  of  their  delivery.  In  due  succes- 
sion and  at  my  leisure  I  read  through  all  the  rest  of  his 
published  writings.  The  Body  of  Christ  impressed 
me  most  in  view  of  the  immediate  problem  I  was 
having  to  face.  Later  on,  but  not  for  some  time, 
and  only  when  the  possibility  of  a  return  to  the 
Anglican  fold  was  beginning  to  loom  on  the  hori- 
zon, I  found  invaluable  help  in  his  Church  and  the 
Ministry,  Roman  Catholic  Claims,  and  Orders  and 
Unity. 

What  principally  arrested  me  in  Dr.  Gore's  state- 
ment of  the  case  against  the  new  theology  was  his 
view  that  it  was  a  reaction  against  certain  forms  of 
nineteenth-century  Protestant  orthodoxy  to  which 
Catholic  Christianity  did  not  stand  committed  in  the 
same  degree.  First,  he  said,  the  kind  of  orthodoxy 
against  which  my  protest  was  made  was  largely 
colored  by  Deism  in  its  conception  of  God. 
Catholic  theology,  on  the  other  hand,  Roman  and 
Anglican,  had  been  comparatively  free  from  this  dan- 
ger. 

Here  we  have  the  ground  for  all  that  reverence  for  nature 
and  natural  law,  and  all  that  regard  for  human  nature, 
which  the  New  Theology  found  lacking  in  current  orthodoxy. 
All  that  proper  reverence  for  nature  and  for  man,  as  the 
expression  of  God,  is  present  in  the  original  Christian 
theology,  which  at  the  same  time  keeps  in  the  forefront  of 
its  teaching  that  thought  of  God  which  forms  the  substance 
of  the  revelation  on  which  it  bases  its  claims  to  teach — 
the  thought  of  God  as  independent  of  the  world  and  supreme 


178      A  SPIRITUAL  PILGRIMAGE 


over  it,  supremely  free  in  His  own  moral  personality  and 
power  as  the  creator  and  the  redeemer  and  the  judge.1 

The  second  defect  of  Protestant  orthodoxy,  ac- 
cording to  Dr.  Gore,  was  that  it  rested  its  system 
upon  the  infallibility  of  Scripture  as  a  record,  a  posi- 
tion no  longer  tenable  in  view  of  the  work  of  science 
and  historical  criticism.  Again  he  put  his  finger  on  a 
sore  place.  This  observation  was  absolutely  true,  and 
the  breakdown  of  the  old  Nonconformist  reliance 
upon  the  letter  of  Scripture  was  a  cause  of  more 
unrest  in  the  churches  than  the  Bishop  was  perhaps 
aware.  It  was,  as  has  been  seen,  the  cause  of  the 
first  opposition  to  my  pulpit  teaching,  that  teaching 
having  habitually  proclaimed  what  up  to  then  had 
not  been  generally  explicit  in  the  mind  of  the  Non- 
conformist laity.  Appeal  to  the  living  Church  is  a 
different  matter  from  appeal  to  the  infallible  book, 
and  it  is  here  that  Catholics  are  on  their  strongest 
ground  and  Protestants  on  their  weakest.  The  Bible 
as  interpreted  by  the  Church  is  the  standard  of  faith, 
not  vice  versa. 

In  the  third  place,  continued  Dr.  Gore,  "the 
Protestant  orthodoxy  centered  itself  upon  the  doc- 
trine of  the  atonement  rather  than  of  the  incarnation, 
at  the  same  time  as  it  tended  to  give  that  doctrine 
an  expression  against  which  the  moral  sense  of  the 
world  revolted."  2  This  again  can  hardly  be  gainsaid. 

1  Lecture  VIII :  The  New  Theology  and  the  Church  of  Eng- 
land, p.  152. 

2  Ibid.,  p.  185. 


THE  NEW  THEOLOGY  179 


Catholic  theology,  as  distinguished  from  authorita- 
tive Catholic  doctrine,  has  frequently  stressed  a  view 
of  the  atoning  work  of  Christ  as  morally  objection- 
able (to  my  mind)  in  its  substitutionary  aspects,  as 
anything  Protestantism  has  ever  said  on  the  same 
subject,  but  this  has  not  been  true  of  the  Catholic 
creeds  or  of  Catholic  teaching  as  a  whole.  Not  till 
Dr.  Gore  pointed  it  out  had  my  thought  rested  on  the 
fact  that  the  doctrine  of  the  Atonement  has  not  been 
formulated  in  any  Catholic  dogma.  The  creeds 
simply  make  the  affirmation  that  our  Lord  suffered 
for  us  and  leave  the  matter  there.  But  they  do  elab- 
orate and  emphasize  the  centrality  of  the  person  of 
Christ  for  Christian  faith,  and  His  relation  to  the 
Godhead  on  the  one  hand  and  to  manhood  on  the 
other.  It  is  the  Incarnation,  not  the  Atonement,  upon 
which  they  specifically  dwell.  As  I  have  said,  this 
consideration  brought  new  light  to  me  and  gave  me 
much  to  think  about  in  years  to  come.  It  is  not  too 
much  to  say  that  following  it  out  ultimately  led  me 
to  the  position  in  which  I  stood  at  Oxford  many  years 
before,  but  now  with  the  wider  knowledge  behind  me 
of  a  long  and  active  ministry  spent  under  Noncon- 
formist auspices. 

Certain  other  influences  were  at  work  in  the  period 
under  review.  The  Christ-Myth  controversy  arose, 
and  I  speedily  found  myself  in  a  dilemma.  I  had  to 
choose  between  those  of  my  school  of  thought  who 
denied  the  historicity  of  Jesus  and  those  who  clung 
to  it.  Of  the  latter  I  found  that  many  were  drifting 
towards  Unitarianism.  The  situation  became  increas- 


180      A  SPIRITUAL  PILGRIMAGE 


ingly  awkward,  and  in  the  end  I  had  to  take  my  own 
individual  course  and  break  away  from  every  set  of 
liberals  Avhose  tendency  was  to  belittle  the  significance 
of  the  majestic  figure  of  the  Lord  of  life  and  glory. 
Professor  Drews'  book  appeared  in  1910  and  created 
something  like  a  panic  in  orthodox  circles  both  in 
England  and  Germany.  There  was  scarcely  a  re- 
ligious assembly  for  a  time  in  which  direct  reference 
was  not  made  to  it.  The  fact  that  the  author  was 
not  a  trained  theologian  or  critic  of  the  gospel 
sources  was  either  ignored  or  forgotten  for  the  most 
part  in  this  country,  and  reams  were  written  in  the 
way  of  attack  upon  and  defense  of  his  positions.  The 
most  deadly  criticism  of  them  that  I  have  read  came 
from  the  pen  of  an  avowed  free-thinker,  F.  C.  Cony- 
beare,  in  a  volume  published  by  the  Rationalist  Press 
Association.  I  have  never  read  such  a  telling  piece 
of  literary  analysis  or  scathing  exposure  of  the  weak- 
ness of  a  case.  That  book  alone  would  have  disposed 
of  Drews  if  there  had  been  no  qualified  theologian  in 
the  field.  The  dust  has  all  settled  now,  and  I  think 
we  may  say  with  confidence  that  the  Christ-Myth 
school  need  no  longer  be  taken  seriously. 

My  friend  Dr.  Anderson  of  Dundee,  a  new  the- 
ologian of  many  years'  standing,  threw  in  his  lot 
whole-heartedly  with  Drews  and  his  followers.  In 
fact  he  anticipated  them.  From  the  very  beginning 
of  the  new  theology  controversy  his  inclination  had 
been  to  call  in  question  the  historicity  of  the  New 
Testament  records  in  their  main  features.  His  con- 
tention was  that  the  Jesus  they  presented  for  our 


THE  NEW  THEOLOGY  181 


acceptance  was  "not  a  human  person."  Upon  this 
he  insisted  with  continually  increasing  emphasis  and 
a  considerable  amount  of  learning  and  critical  acu- 
men. And  a  curious  result  followed  which  brought 
home  to  me  with  overwhelming  force  the  insecure 
nature  of  the  new  theology  premises.  On  the  one 
hand  Dr.  Anderson  and  those  who  sympathized  with 
him  were  anxious  to  discriminate  the  movement  from 
Unitarianism  by  pressing  into  the  foreground  the 
all- sufficiency  of  the  Christ  of  faith  as  the  object  of 
our  allegiance  and  worship,  and,  on  the  other,  men 
of  much  less  mark  were  equally  determined  to  regard 
our  Lord  only  as  an  actual  historical  figure  but  no 
more  than  "the  first-born  among  many  brethren." 
The  situation  caused  me  prolonged  and  anxious 
thought.  It  forced  an  issue.  I  could  not  give  my 
adherence  to  either  party.  The  Christ  of  Unitari- 
anism was  not  enough  for  me,  and  still  less  was  I 
disposed  to  take  His  feet  off  the  earth  and  view  Him 
only  as  an  ideal,  a  divine  abstraction  to  be  worshiped 
as  poets  and  artists  worship  beauty.  Henceforth  I 
became  much  more  emphatic  and  explicit  in  my  dec- 
larations of  the  uniqueness  and  indefeasible  sover- 
eignty of  our  Lord  Jesus  Christ  as  God  and  man,  the 
indispensable  head  and  center  of  the  life  of  the  Chris- 
tian Church  as  a  whole  and  of  every  individual  mem- 
ber thereof  in  particular. 

In  justice  to  Dr.  Anderson  I  feel  I  ought  to  re- 
mark here,  as  I  did  to  the  Congregational  Union 
Assembly  in  Nottingham  in  the  autumn  of  1911,  that 
he  has  done  more  than  any  other  man  to  differentiate 


182      A  SPIRITUAL  PILGRIMAGE 


the  new  theology  movement  from  Unitarianism.  He 
felt,  as  he  often  said,  that  liberal  Protestantism  as  a 
whole  was  without  an  evangel;  it  could  not  lift;  it 
could  not  save.  He  was  good  enough  to  express  the 
opinion  very  strongly  that  it  was  my  preaching  of 
the  saviorhood  of  the  living  Christ  that  had  pre- 
served what  he  called  the  spirituality  of  our  form 
of  liberalism  and  prevented  it  from  degenerating  into 
a  mere  intellectual  cult,  and  he  urged  me  to  go 
further  and  get  rid  of  all  the  historical  difficulties 
at  a  stroke  by  admitting  that  the  power  of  Chris- 
tianity did  not  depend  upon  any  historical  founder. 
That  once  granted,  he  maintained,  we  could  preach 
with  no  uncertain  sound  the  gospel  of  repentance  for 
the  remission  of  sins,  Atonement,  salvation  by  union 
with  the  Lamb  slain  from  the  foundation  of  the  world, 
being  grafted  into  Christ's  mystical  body,  and  all  the 
rest  of  the  Catholic  faith.  I  could  not  agree.  It 
seemed  to  me  then,  as  it  does  now,  overwhelmingly 
true  that  without  the  historical  facts  there  would 
never  have  been  any  Catholic  faith  to  preach. 

My  attitude  to  the  cardinal  subject  thus  indicated 
can  best  perhaps  be  made  clear  by  recalling  what  I 
said  about  it  in  some  of  the  sermons  preached  at  the 
time.  The  following  paragraphs  from  a  sermon  en- 
titled "Jesus  and  the  Mystic  Christ,"  1  preached  from 
the  text,  "Whom  say  ye  that  I  am?"  (St.  Mark  viii, 
29),  may  serve  to  illustrate  what  I  mean. 

There  is  a  reemphasis  just  now  of  faith  in  what 

1  Preached  in  the  City  Temple,  April  17,  1910. 


THE  NEW  THEOLOGY  183 


may  be  called  the  mystical  Christ  as  distinguished 
from  any  historic  personality  whatsoever.  This  re- 
emphasis  practically  eliminates  Jesus  from  the  scene 
altogether  and  concentrates  attention  upon  the  Christ 
who  is  the  God  in  all  humanity  and  "the  light  that 
lighteth  every  man  that  cometh  into  the  world."  It 
is  contended  that  this  is  the  Christ  in  whom  Christian 
devotion  has  really  believed  all  along  and  that  the 
personality  of  Jesus  has  had  little  or  nothing  to  do 
with  the  result;  in  fact,  say  the  supporters  of  this 
view,  even  supposing  Jesus  to  have  been  the  actual 
founder  of  the  Christian  religion,  we  know  nothing 
about  Him,  we  only  know  the  Christ  whom  no  human 
personality  has  ever  been  able  to  contain  or  express. 
This  position  is  being  argued  with  much  cogency  and 
force.  Its  advocates  insist  that  in  the  last  resort 
New  Testament  criticism  does  not  give  us  a  human 
Christ  at  all;  it  gives  us  a  superhuman  being;  what- 
ever else  it  is,  "the  New  Testament  is  not  a  Unitarian 
book";  it  does  not  show  us  a  Christ  who  is  first  of 
all  a  good  man,  a  real  man,  a  transcendently  great 
religious  genius  and  nothing  more.  From  first  to 
last — I  am  still  stating  this  particular  critical  view — 
this  book  witnesses  to  a  Christ  who  is  the  very  life  of 
the  believer  and  stands  to  him  in  a  relation  in  which 
no  mere  human  teacher  either  could  or  ought  to  stand. 
Thus  when  the  apostle  Paul  speaks  of  Christ  living 
in  him  or  of  Christ  being  "formed  in"  his  converts, 
or  of  the  Church  as  the  mystical  body  of  Christ,  he 
cannot  be  describing  a  Christ  who  can  be  squeezed 
into  human  categories;  plainly  he  is  speaking  of  the 


184      A  SPIRITUAL  PILGRIMAGE 


mystical  Christ,  the  cosmic  Christ,  the  Christ  who  is 
that  of  God  which  is  becoming  manifest  in  the  higher 
life  of  the  human  race.  Make  no  mistake :  the  school 
of  critics  to  which  I  am  referring  at  the  moment  does 
not  mean  to  exalt  Jesus  by  advancing  these  conclu- 
sions; their  intention  is  the  precise  contrary;  they 
think  our  Christianity  would  be  stronger  if  we 
thought  only  of  the  living  Christ,  the  divine  indweller, 
and  not  of  what  they  hold  to  be  the  vague  and 
shadowy  figure  who  stands  far  away  in  the  past  at 
the  beginning  of  Christian  history;  they  frankly  dis- 
believe the  gospel  accounts  of  the  supposed  doings  of 
Jesus  in  Galilee  and  Jerusalem,  or,  what  is  much  the 
same  thing,  they  affirm  that  they  cannot  be  certain  as 
to  what  is  true  in  them  and  what  is  not;  sometimes 
the  Christ  thus  portrayed  is  quite  obviously  the 
Christ  of  faith,  the  Christ  who  is  not  properly  to  be 
regarded  as  a  man  at  all.  The  Jesus  of  the  gospels, 
they  maintain,  is  not  a  real  person;  He  is  an  ideal, 
an  attempt  to  dramatize  the  soul's  experience  of  the 
Christ  of  faith.  Therefore  they  fall  back  upon  the 
experience,  not  the  history ;  they  look  to  the  Christian 
experience  set  forth  in  the  epistles,  and  say,  There 
is  the  real  Christ;  there  is  the  Christ  who  is  the 
heavenly  man,  the  divine  redeemer  who  is  born,  grows 
up,  suff ers,  dies,  and  rises  in  glory  in  the  heart  of  the 
believer;  there  is  the  real  gospel,  as  true  and  helpful 
now  as  then,  the  gospel  to  cling  to  and  declare,  the 
gospel  of  Christ  "the  same  yesterday,  and  today,  and 
forever" — but  not  Jesus.  It  is  not  Jesus  who  is  the 
same  yesterday,  and  today,  and  forever.   Never  mind 


THE  NEW  THEOLOGY 


185 


Him ;  He  may  be  only  a  myth ;  and  what  does  it  mat-' 
ter  so  long  as  we  have  the  Christ? 

Well,  that  is  the  position,  and  there  you  have  it 
as  plainly  as  I  know  how  to  state  it.  But  let  me  say 
as  emphatically  and  strongly  as  it  lies  in  my  power 
to  do,  that  it  does  not  satisfy  my  religious  life,  nor 
does  it  seem  to  me  to  explain  the  facts  of  Christian 
experience  in  their  entirety.  Please  understand  I 
am  not  quarreling  with  it.  Controversy  is  about  as 
far  from  my  mind  as  anything  could  well  be  at  the 
present  moment.  No,  I  am  glad  of  it  up  to  a  point, 
glad  of  it  because  of  the  evangelic  passion  it  makes 
possible  to  minds  which  cannot  be  satisfied  either  by 
the  Christ  of  dogma  or  the  non-divine  Christ  of  re- 
ligious rationalism.  I  do  believe  with  all  my  heart 
that  the  Christ  who  has  been  loved  and  worshiped 
all  the  ages  through  is  this  mystical  Christ  who  comes 
so  close  to  us  in  our  spiritual  life  that  it  is  impossible 
to  find  a  figure  wherewith  adequately  to  describe  the 
relationship.  But  all  the  same  we  cannot  dispense 
with  Jesus  as  the  Christ  incarnate,  and  the  facts  of 
the  case  do  not  warrant  us  in  trying  to  do  so.  Jesus 
and  the  mystical  Christ  are  one  and  the  same,  though 
the  latter  is  the  larger  term.  It  is  Jesus  who  has 
shown  us  the  mystical  Christ.  If  it  were  otherwise 
the  very  existence  of  Christianity  would  to  me  be  un- 
intelligible. Great  religious  movements  do  not  begin 
up  in  the  air,  so  to  speak ;  they  begin  with  the  spoken 
word  and  the  inspiring  life.  This  would  be  all  the 
more  true  of  any  movement  which  was  morally  up- 
lifting and  spiritually  regenerating.    Men  might 


136      A  SPIRITUAL  PILGRIMAGE 


dream  their  dream  of  the  heavenly  Christ  who  is  the 
deeper  self  of  all  mankind,  but  the  dream  would  have 
little  power  till  they  heard  that  Christ  speak  with 
divine  authority  through  human  lips.  To  say  they 
would  adore  the  mystical  Christ  first,  do  so  by  name, 
and  then  proceed  to  invent  sweet  stories  of  His  advent 
among  men  in  the  guise  of  a  Galilean  carpenter  is  to 
turn  probabilities  topsy  turvy.  The  sequence  of 
events  would  be  just  the  other  way  about.  Given 
the  real  Jesus  they  could  come  to  believe  in  the 
mystical  Christ  and  be  conscious  of  His  presence  in 
the  soul. 

The  late  Father  Tyrrell's  posthumous  book, 
Christianity  at  the  Cross  Roads,  joined  issue  with 
liberal  Protestantism  on  this  very  ground.  By  lib- 
eral Protestantism  the  author  must  have  meant  Uni- 
tarianism  as  commonly  understood;  he  could  not 
mean  the  Christianity  taught  from  this  pulpit.  Mod- 
ernism, he  maintained,  was  not  this  liberal  Protes- 
tantism, and  he  might  have  said  the  same  of  your 
religious  faith  and  mine.  The  Jesus  of  the  New 
Testament,  he  declared,  according  to  the  findings  of 
the  most  thoroughgoing  criticism  of  the  Christian 
sources,  is  not  merely  the  good  man  who  has  no  con- 
sciousness of  being  anything  more;  he  believes  him- 
self divine,  the  Christ  eternal,  one  with  God.  As  to 
ourselves,  continues  the  great  modernist,  though  we 
do  not  possess  this  consciousness,  the  fact  that  Jesus 
had  it  ennobles  our  conceptions  of  the  possibilities 
of  our  own  being.  "We  simply  do  not  know  what 
our  own  spirits  are,"  but  ought  we  to  think  of  them 


THE  NEW  THEOLOGY 


187 


more  meanly  than  Jesus  thought  of  our  relationship 
to  Him,  and  His  to  God? 

A  few  weeks  later,  though  of  the  precise  date  I 
cannot  be  sure,  I  preached  another  sermon  on  the 
same  subject  from  the  text,  "Every  spirit  that  con- 
fesseth  that  Jesus  Christ  is  come  in  the  flesh  is  of 
God"  (1  John  iv,  2).  At  the  risk  of  being  prolix 
and  engaging  in  some  amount  of  repetition  I  sub- 
join the  following  extracts  from  it.  I  prefer  to  let 
them  stand  as  they  were  originally  spoken  rather 
than  excise  from  them  the  statements  which  cover  the 
same  ground  as  the  passages  quoted  above. 

This  is  a  strange  saying,  especially  when  we  con- 
sider that  it  was  written  sufficiently  early  to  find  a 
place  in  the  New  Testament.  Apparently  it  was 
quite  possible,  even  as  near  to  the  beginnings  of  Chris- 
tianity as  this,  for  persons  calling  themselves  Chris- 
tians to  deny  that  Jesus  Christ  had  come  in  the  flesh 
— that  is,  had  ever  lived  a  true  human  life.  That 
such  an  attitude  was  possible  only  goes  to  show  how 
lowly  and  unpretentious  were  the  beginnings  of  the 
faith.  These  people  could  not  have  denied  the  earthly 
life  of  Jesus  if  that  life  had  made  a  great  stir  in 
the  world  while  it  was  being  lived.  The  persons  here 
alluded  to  were  probably  a  sect  of  the  Gnostics — of 
whom  there  were  many  sects — or  some  cult  allied  to 
them  in  opinion.  By  denying  that  Jesus  Christ  had 
come  in  the  flesh  they  must  have  meant  one  of  two 
things — either  His  life  in  the  body  was  an  appearance 


188      A  SPIRITUAL  PILGRIMAGE 


only,  and  not  a  flesh-and-blood  existence,  or  He  had 
never  been  on  earth  at  all.  We  know  that  among 
early  Christian  heresies  the  former  of  these  alterna- 
tives was  actually  taught.  It  was  held  that  the  eternal 
Son  of  God  was  a  heavenly  being,  and  as  such  could 
not  be  made  to  suffer  as  mortals  have  to  do  through 
being  imprisoned  in  the  flesh;  even  His  crucifixion 
was  not  real  suffering  and  death;  it  only  appeared 
to  be  such;  divinity  could  not  suffer.  On  the  other 
hand,  as  I  have  just  said,  there  were  no  doubt  some 
who  maintained  that  the  Christ  had  never  been  on 
earth  at  all  save  as  He  lived  in  the  hearts  of  His 
followers.  It  is  to  these,  perhaps,  that  my  text  more 
specially  refers. 

You  will  admit,  I  am  sure,  that  this  is  rather  strik- 
ing. Here,  almost  at  the  starting  point  of  the  life  of 
the  Christian  Church,  we  have  some  Christians — or 
people  who  claimed  to  be  Christians — who  did  not 
believe,  and  did  not  feel  it  necessary  to  believe,  that 
their  Lord  and  Master  had  ever  lived  as  a  man  among 
men.  Of  course  it  was  not  long  before  the  majority 
put  them  right  on  that  point  by  making  it  into  an 
article  of  faith  and  reciting  it  as  a  creed:  "Who  for 
us  men,  and  for  our  salvation,  came  down  from 
heaven,  and  was  incarnate  by  the  Holy  Ghost  of  the 
Virgin  Mary,  and  was  made  man."  This  in  time  be- 
came the  universally  held  belief  of  the  Christian 
Church,  but,  as  we  see,  it  was  not  always  so.  It  is, 
indeed,  a  very  remarkable  thing  that  in  the  New 
Testament  itself  there  should  be  an  allusion  to  quasi- 
Christian  teachers  who  knew  nothing  of  the  Galilean 


THE  NEW  THEOLOGY  189 


ministry  or  the  home  at  Nazareth,  and  who  were 
firmly  convinced  that  the  Christ  they  worshiped  had 
never  lived  on  earth  as  a  human  being. 

The  reason  I  have  drawn  attention  to  the  fact  this 
morning  is  this:  It  seems  as  though  this  belief  of 
eighteen,  or  perhaps  nineteen  centuries  ago — or  some- 
thing very  like  it — were  reviving  again  in  our  midst. 
Not  so  very  many  years  ago,  as  most  of  you  can  re- 
member, the  cry  of  the  more  advanced  spirits  in  the 
religious  world  was  "Back  to  Jesus."  We  were  bid- 
den to  look  for  the  Man  of  Galilee,  the  true  Jesus, 
beneath  all  the  trappings  wherewith  ecclesiasticism 
had  hidden  Him  for  ages.  And  from  time  to  time  the 
announcement  was  made  that  we  had  found  Him. 
Such  books  as  Professor  Seely's  Ecce  Homo  and 
Renan's  Life  of  Jesus  had  an  enormous  circulation 
and  exercised  an  immense  influence  in  the  simplifying 
of  Christian  thought.  What  these  books  showed  us 
was  a  winsome  though  majestic  figure,  grandly  hu- 
man, one  of  ourselves  but  gifted  with  an  insight  into 
the  ways  of  God  such  as  no  son  of  man  has  ever  pos- 
sessed in  like  measure  before  or  since.  Of  course  this 
was  not  the  Christ  of  the  Church,  but  liberal  thinkers 
cared  little  for  that;  they  were  tired  of  dogma,  tired 
of  the  ecclesiastical  mind,  and  tired  of  the  antagonism 
between  both  of  these  and  the  new  "enthusiasm  of 
humanity" — to  quote  Ecce  Homo — which  was  begin- 
ning to  be  preached  everywhere.  They  were  glad  to 
have  discovered  or  to  think  they  had  discovered  Jesus, 
the  Elder  Brother  of  the  struggling,  suffering,  aspir- 
ing human  race. 


190      A  SPIRITUAL  PILGRIMAGE 


But  the  still  newer  school  to  which  I  have  just 
referred  is  breaking  in  upon  our  contemplation  of 
this  ideal  by  telling  us  that  it  is  but  a  dream.  This 
Jesus,  they  say,  is  not  to  be  found  in  the  New  Testa- 
ment, and,  if  not,  where  else  are  we  to  look  for  Him? 
The  Jesus  of  the  New  Testament,  says  Dr.  Anderson, 
for  instance,  is  "a  divine  person";  at  any  rate  He  is 
not  a  human  person  in  any  sense  that  can  properly 
be  called  human.  He  is  the  Creator  of  the  world, 
and  comes  down  from  Heaven  to  save  it  when  it  goes 
wrong.  Even  in  the  simplest  gospel  accounts  He  is 
never  less  than  supernatural,  never  belongs  to  the 
plane  on  which  the  rest  of  us  are  at  home.  We  may 
call  "Back  to  Jesus"  as  loudly  as  we  please,  but  we 
cannot  get  farther  back  than  the  New  Testament,  and 
the  Christ  of  the  New  Testament  is  not  the  Christ  of 
the  Ecce  Homo,  much  less  of  Renan ;  He  is  a  God.  I 
hope  I  am  doing  no  injustice  to  this  group  of  scholars 
if  I  add  that,  so  far  as  I  can  make  out,  they  admit  the 
possibility  that  there  may  have  been  a  real  Jesus  who 
set  the  ball  of  Christianity  rolling,  so  to  speak,  but 
they  contend  that  He  was  soon  lost  sight  of  in  the 
worship  of  a  divine  person,  a  heavenly  Christ,  a 
spiritual  ideal  with  whom  He  could  have  had  little  in 
common. 

Dr.  Anderson  in  particular  goes  on  to  urge 
that  it  is  this  heavenly  Christ  with  whom  we  really 
have  to  do,  and  with  whom  the  Christian  church  has 
had  to  do  all  along.  He  is  no  imaginary  figure ;  He 
is  the  very  root  of  our  being ;  He  is  that  of  God  which 
is  manifesting  in  man,  and  is  the  goal  of  all  our 


THE  NEW  THEOLOGY  191 


spiritual  aspiration  and  the  object  of  all  our  religious 
endeavor.  There  is  no  need  to  lay  any  stress  on  a 
supposed  historic  Christ  of  nineteen  hundred  years 
ago ;  the  ever-present  Christ,  the  heavenly  Christ,  the 
indwelling  Christ,  is  enough  for  all  our  religious  life; 
but  He  has  never  lived  an  earthly  life  in  any  one 
individual  human  body ;  the  New  Testament  story  of 
the  doings  of  Jesus  is  the  product  of  the  pious  imag- 
ination. 

But,  admitting  frankly  all  the  force  there  is  in 
tins  way  of  stating  what  we  know  to  be  a  fact,  the 
fact  that  it  is  the  Christ  of  faith,  the  Christ  not  after 
the  flesh,  with  whom  we  today  have  our  living  rela- 
tions, let  me  say  emphatically  that  I  take  my  stand 
by  the  side  of  the  man  who  wrote  this  passage  of 
Scripture,  and  add  that  I  want  Jesus  too.  I  cannot 
rest  satisfied  with  any  new  Gnosticism  or  Docetism 
that  would  rob  me  of  Christ  manifest  in  the  flesh. 
You  may  say  that  we  have  Christ  manifest  in  the 
flesh  wherever  we  see  human  nature  filled  and  pos- 
sessed by  divine  love,  and  I  gratefully  agree.  The 
world  is  poor  and  sad  indeed,  but  it  would  be  im- 
measurably poorer  and  sadder  if  we  could  find  noth- 
ing of  Christ  in  the  human  souls  that  dwell  in  it. 
Praise  be  to  God,  there  is  no  spot  on  earth  so  dark 
but  that  some  glimmer  of  the  light  of  Christ  is  to  be 
found  there.  A  few  weeks  ago  I  was  walking  along 
a  somewhat  secluded  pathway  in  Switzerland  upon 
which  apparently  the  light  of  the  sun  seldom  shone. 
The  bare  stones  at  the  side  permitted  little  oppor- 
tunity to  vegetable  growth,  but  one's  eye  was  arrested 


192      A  SPIRITUAL  PILGRIMAGE 


immediately  by  the  presence  of  one  solitary  blood- 
red  flower  which  held  its  ground  bravely  in  a  tiny 
cleft  of  rock.  I  thought  of  it  as  a  figure  of  many  a 
holy  life  that  is  being  lived  in  the  dark  places  of  the 
earth  at  the  present  time,  a  figure  of  the  love  of  God 
revealed  in  His  children's  acceptance  of  the  cross; 
wherever  you  see  the  blood-red  flower  of  sacrifice 
you  see  Christ.  But  that  is  not  all  I  want.  I  want 
the  fellowship  of  Him  in  whom  men  saw,  in  days 
gone  by,  "the  fullness  of  the  Godhead  bodily."  I 
quite  admit  that  there  are  many  aspects  of  life  which 
Jesus  never  touched,  and  which  no  Galilean  of  His 
time  ever  could  have  touched,  but  it  seems  to  me  ut- 
terly unreasonable  to  say  that  faith  in  a  God-filled 
earthly  life  could  ever  have  sprung  only  from  men's 
pathetic  imaginings  of  what  they  would  like  to  see 
instead  of  what  they  did  see.  That  is  not  the  way 
I  read  history;  it  is  not  the  way  I  see  history  being 
made  now. 

Before  either  of  the  foregoing — in  fact,  if  I  re- 
member rightly,  before  the  publication  of  Drews' 
book  itself — I  preached  a  sermon  on  "Vision  of 
Christ"  which  shows  that  the  issue  above  discussed 
was  already  beginning  to  be  sharply  defined.  The 
text  was,  "Have  I  not  seen  Jesus  Christ  our  Lord?" 
(1  Cor.  ix.  I).1  I  take  the  following  paragraphs 
from  it. 

At  the  present  time,  as  many  of  you  are  doubtless 

1  Preached  in  the  City  Temple,  January  9,  1910. 


THE  NEW  THEOLOGY 


193 


aware,  criticism  of  the  Christian  sources  is  passing 
through  a  new  phase.  The  question  of  first  impor- 
tance is  no  longer  that  of  the  authenticity  of  particular 
books  of  the  Bible,  but  the  historicity  of  the  Founder 
of  Christianity  Himself.  Was  there  ever  any  such 
person  as  Jesus?  is  a  question  which  is  being  asked, 
not  so  much  by  scoffers  and  unbelievers  as  by 
scholarly  men  of  deep  religious  convictions,  and  in 
not  a  few  instances  a  negative  answer  is  being  given 
to  it,  or,  perhaps,  it  would  be  truer  to  say  the  conclu- 
sion arrived  at  is  that,  whether  there  were  such  a 
person  or  no,  He  has  had  practically  no  influence  on 
the  development  of  Christianity.  Some  time  ago  a 
friend  of  mine  asked  a  literary  man  of  some  distinc- 
tion to  state  succinctly  what,  in  his  judgment,  Jesus 
has  done  for  humanity.  The  response  was  rather 
startling.  "Jesus  has  done  nothing  for  humanity," 
wrote  the  person  interrogated,  "but  humanity  has 
done  a  good  deal  for  Jesus.  It  has  loaded  upon  Him, 
from  age  to  age,  its  own  pathetic  imaginings  as  to 
what  ought  to  constitute  the  ideal  man ;  it  has  deified 
this,  and  worshiped  it  passionately  ;  from  age  to 
age,  and  race  to  race,  the  portrait  has  varied  accord- 
ing to  the  needs  of  the  situation;  the  Jesus  of  popular 
belief  has  not  been  by  any  means  a  consistent  figure 
throughout."  This  dictum,  without  doubt,  represents 
what  a  large  number  of  cultured  people  in  this  coun- 
try, and  other  Christian  countries,  think  about  the 
reverence  paid  to  the  name  of  Jesus.  Some  think  it 
possible  He  may,  indeed,  have  lived  and  taught,  suf- 
fered and  been  crucified,  but  they  do  not  believe  we 


194      A  SPIRITUAL  PILGRIMAGE 

can  now  obtain  any  really  reliable  facts  concerning 
Him;  what  Christendom  worships  under  that  name, 
they  maintain,  is  an  idealized  figure  who  may  have 
no  more  connection  with  the  original  than  the  United 
States  of  today  resembles  the  Germania  of  Tacitus. 
Every  fresh  generation  invents  its  Divine  Man  and 
calls  him  Jesus. 

Of  late,  too,  the  subject  of  discussion  has  been 
developing  rapidly.  There  is  a  school  of  critics  whose 
work  is  influencing  minds  as  diverse  as  that  of  my 
friend  Dr.  Anderson  of  Dundee,  on  the  one  hand, 
and  those  of  orthodox  writers  like  Dr.  James  Denney 
on  the  other.  To  these  I  might  add  the  late  Father 
Tyrrell,  who  has  left  a  book  behind  him,  Christianity 
at  the  Cross  Roads,  in  which  the  influence  of  this  new 
development  is  plainly  apparent.  Roughly  speak- 
ing, the  conclusions  put  forward  by  this  school  are 
as  follows:  No  matter  how  far  we  go  back  in  our 
examination  into  Christian  origins,  we  never  come 
upon  the  simple  human  Jesus  of  liberal  Protestantism. 
Outside  the  New  Testament,  contemporary  evidence 
as  to  His  life  and  work  is  non-existent,  and  the  very 
earliest  Christian  literature,  the  literature  of  the  sub- 
apostolic  age,  assumes  that  He  was  a  supernatural 
person.  Nowhere  have  we  any  such  detailed  account 
of  His  doings  as  would  warrant  us  in  putting  Him 
in  the  same  category  with  other  great  religious  mas- 
ters of  men ;  we  know  a  good  deal  about  Buddha,  for 
instance;  in  spite  of  a  lavish  intermixture  of  legend 
and  fable  we  are  able  to  obtain  a  fairly  clear  outline 
of  his  life  and  character.    It  is  the  same  with  Ma- 


THE  NEW  THEOLOGY 


195 


hornet,  Zoroaster,  St.  Francis  of  Assisi.  Many  mar- 
velous things  have  gathered  round  the  personality  of 
the  leader  and  teacher  in  each  case,  but  the  whole  life 
is  before  us  and  its  historicity  is  well  authenticated.1 
Not  so  with  Jesus ;  He  takes  no  part  in  the  history  of 
His  time;  is  quite  unknown  outside  the  petty  sub- 
ject state  in  which  He  is  born;  and,  so  far  as  the 
brief  Christian  records  themselves  go,  He  never  was 
regarded  by  His  followers  as  a  human  being  in  the 
same  way  as  the  personal  forces  I  have  just  named 
were  human  beings.  Always  He  is  represented  as 
someone  supernatural. 

Here,  then,  is  a  paradox.  The  world  in  which 
Jesus  must  have  lived,  if  He  lived  at  all,  knew  prac- 
tically nothing  about  Him;  only  a  few  Galileans, 
mostly  uneducated,  believed  in  Him — so  the  New 
Testament  tells  us — but  their  belief  in  Him  went  far 
beyond  ordinary  loyalty  to  a  spiritual  teacher;  they 
believed  in  Him  as  something  more  than  human. 
What  a  perplexing  contradiction!  And  when  we 
come  to  the  experience  of  such  a  man  as  the  writer 
of  my  text  we  have  something  more  remarkable  still. 
This  Paul  had  never  seen  Jesus  in  the  flesh  at  all, 
so  far  as  we  have  any  information;  when  he  says  he 
has  seen  Him  he  means  that  he  has  seen  Him  in  vision 
— not  as  He  was  on  earth,  but  as  He  is  in  Heaven.  All 
through  his  writings  he  evidently  looks  upon  Jesus, 
not  so  much  as  an  ideal  human  being,  as  a  super- 
human being.  To  Paul,  Jesus  was,  not  a  man  among 
men,  but  the  source  of  humanity  itself,  the  Word 

1  This  might  be  open  to  question  in  the  ease  of  Gautama. 


196      A  SPIRITUAL  PILGRIMAGE 

by  whom  the  worlds  were  made.  He  tells  us  nothing 
about  the  carpenter  of  Nazareth. 

It  is  the  recognition  of  these  things  which  is  forc- 
ing some  of  the  honest  religious  minds  of  our  time 
to  ask  whether  an  historic  outstanding  personality  at 
the  beginning  was  really  necessar}^  to  Christianity. 
They  doubt  whether  there  ever  was  a  Jesus — that  is, 
a  Jesus  who  was  the  actual  originator  of  the  Chris- 
tian religion.  They  think  it  more  probable  that  the 
Christ  of  faith  was  worshiped  from  the  first  and 
that  He  never  wore  a  human  form.  Others,  such 
as  Father  Tyrrell,  deduce  from  the  same  set  of  facts 
the  conclusion  that  there  was  indeed  a  Jesus,  but 
that  He  Himself  believed  that  He  was  different  from 
the  rest  of  humanity  not  only  in  degree  but  in  kind. 
"Ye  are  from  beneath;  I  am  from  above,"  say  these 
devout  critical  students  of  Christian  origins,  repre- 
sents Jesus'  own  thought  about  His  personality,  as 
well  as  that  of  the  primitive  church.  Father  Tyrrell 
goes  so  far  as  to  assert  that  this  consciousness  of 
Jesus  concerning  Himself  was  quite  consistent  with 
a  full  acceptance  of  all  the  characteristic  preposses- 
sions of  His  time  and  race  about  the  apocalyptic  sec- 
ond coming,  the  Satanic  dominion  of  this  world,  and 
so  on.  He  almost  makes  Jesus  a  sort  of  obsessed 
fanatic  in  His  insistence  upon  those  things.  The  Son 
of  Man  of  popular  Jewish  belief  was  a  vague  figure, 
about  whom  various  theories  were  held;  and,  accord- 
ing to  Father  Tyrrell,  Jesus  held  that  He  was  the 
Son  of  Man  simply  in  the  sense  that  He  had  come 
from  Heaven,  and  that  His  mission  was  to  institute 


THE  NEW  THEOLOGY 


197 


the  Kingdom  of  God  on  earth  not  by  a  slow  spiritual 
process,  but  by  a  tremendous  catastrophe.  He  be- 
lieved, continues  the  modernist  writer,  that  His  own 
sacrificial  death  was  a  necessary  preliminary  to  this 
miraculous  catastrophe  because  it  would  fill  up  the 
cup  of  the  world's  iniquity  and  bring  conflict  between 
Heaven  and  earth  to  an  immediate  culmination.  With 
this  conviction  in  His  heart  He  deliberately  went  up  to 
Jerusalem  at  the  close  of  His  ministry  in  order  to 
force  the  issue  with  the  authorities  and  practically 
compel  them  to  kill  Him ;  He  did  this  with  the  equally 
firm  conviction  that  He  would  almost  instantly  return 
from  the  further  side  of  death  at  the  head  of  the 
hosts  of  Heaven  and  inaugurate  with  a  mighty  hand 
the  Kingdom  whose  speedy  advent  it  had  been  His 
previous  mission  to  declare. 

You  will  not  be  surprised  to  hear  me  say  that  in 
this  piece  of  description  I  cannot  recognize  the  Jesus 
I  have  been  accustomed  to  preach  or  in  whom  most 
of  us  have  believed.  One  can  see  what  has  led  Father 
Tyrrell  to  take  this  ground.  It  is  precisely  the  same 
set  of  critical  results  that  has  led  Dr.  Anderson  and 
others  to  take  the  ground  that  there  was  no  Jesus  at 
the  beginning  of  Christian  history,  or  rather,  that 
we  have  no  access  through  the  Christian  records  to 
any  Jesus  who  can  properly  be  described  as  human 
and  real;  that  it  is  the  Christ  of  faith,  the  pathetic 
invention  of  devout  religious  fancy,  with  whom  we 
are  dealing  from  the  first.  All  things  considered, 
I  should  rather  be  compelled  to  accept  this  alterna- 
tive than  Father  Tyrrell's.  His  Christ  appears  to  me 


198      A  SPIRITUAL  PILGRIMAGE 


to  have  come  perilously  near  to  being  a  crazy  en- 
thusiast, great  and  sincere,  perhaps,  but  altogether 
too  small  for  the  part  His  name  has  played  in  the 
spiritual  development  of  mankind.  If  the  real  Jesus 
were  this,  then  by  all  means  let  us  fall  back  on  the 
Christ  whose  feet  have  never  touched  the  ground, 
the  Christ  who  is  the  changing  embodiment  of  men's 
dreams  of  the  spiritual  ideal,  the  Christ  who  is  our 
symbol  for  the  God-Man  of  human  aspiration.  It  is 
but  just  to  add,  and  I  gladly  do  so,  that,  in  the  Chris- 
tian experience  of  men  such  as  I  have  named,  this 
Christ  of  faith  is  no  fancy,  but  the  guiding  reality 
of  life.  Behind  the  best  humanity  that  has  ever  yet 
found  manifestation  is  a  primordial  humanity  that 
was  with  the  Father  before  the  world  was,  from  whom 
we  have  all  come  forth,  towards  whom  we  all  yearn, 
and  in  whom  we  are  all  one.  There  are  some  who  love 
and  worship  that  Christ,  feeling  His  presence  with 
them  day  by  day,  who  can  never  be  equally  sure  that 
they  have  found  Him  in  the  Jesus  of  the  New  Testa- 
ment. 

But  not  for  a  single  moment  would  I  concede  either 
that  this  was  the  real  Jesus  or  that  there  was  no 
Jesus;  not  for  a  single  moment  would  I  deny  the 
Jesus  of  the  past  in  declaring  my  allegiance  to  the 
Christ  of  the  present.  The  Jesus  of  modern  liberal 
Christianity  is  not  so  easily  disposed  of  as  all  that. 
I  am  of  those  who  believe  they  can  see  at  the  begin- 
ning of  Christian  history  a  divine  figure  who,  despite 
the  misrepresentations  and  prepossessions  of  His  re- 
porters, is  neither  a  mistaken  visionary  nor  a  pious 


THE  NEW  THEOLOGY  199 


fancy  of  later  times.  As  I  have  said  before,  I  am 
not  concerned  to  prove  Him  ideally  immaculate  or 
even  to  discuss  whether  such  a  thing  could  be, 
apart  from  the  perfection  of  the  whole  race  or  out- 
side the  infinitude  of  God.  But  what  I  do  in- 
sist upon  is  that  the  source  of  the  swelling  flood 
of  spiritual  life  which  has  flowed  down  the  cen- 
turies from  the  tiny  Galilee  of  nineteen  centuries 
ago  was  a  gracious  and  magnificent  personality  of 
amazing  force  and  moral  loftiness.  This  Jesus  was 
just  as  real  as  you  or  I,  and  vastly  greater.  It  was 
He  who  made  the  Christ  idea  a  living  factor  in 
the  spiritual  evolution  of  mankind:  but  for  Him  it 
would  have  vanished  along  with  the  thousand  myths 
and  superstitions  of  past  ages ;  He  made  it  throb  and 
glow  with  divine  energy.  If  today  we  adore  the 
Christ  of  faith  it  is  because  the  Jesus  of  history  gave 
Him  a  body  and  a  soul.  I  need  not  repeat  the  reasons 
I  have  previously  given  in  speech  and  writing  for 
this  conviction ;  but  I  adhere  to  it  more  strongly  than 
ever;  it  seems  to  me  incredible  that  the  most  potent, 
lasting,  uplifting,  regenerating  religious  movement 
the  world  has  ever  known  should  have  begun  in  the 
vain  imagining  of  a  few  ignorant  folk  who  managed 
to  persuade  themselves  that  a  divine  man  had  taber- 
nacled for  awhile  in  human  flesh,  though  they  them- 
selves had  never  seen  Him.  We  are  asked  to  believe 
that  a  divine  madness  seized  hold  of  multitudes  be- 
cause of  this  gradually  growing  tale,  but  that  no  one 
could  point  to  the  actual  inventor  or  say  why  and 
how  it  was  set  going.    This  is  not  the  way  human 


200      A  SPIRITUAL  PILGRIMAGE 


nature  works  now,  and  it  is  improbable  that  it  was 
radically  different  in  the  past.  We  may  overlay  our 
heroes  with  trappings  of  legend  and  wonder-story, 
but  we  do  not  invent  the  heroes  themselves;  it  is  the 
impulse  that  comes  from  them  that  sets  the  poetic 
imagination  going  and  weaves  their  personalities  into 
the  spiritual  texture  of  days  to  come.  Like  Paul, 
though  I  have  never  seen  Jesus  in  the  flesh,  I  can 
see  Him  in  what  He  has  wrought ;  I  can  see  Him  in 
the  stream  of  which  He  was  the  spring ;  I  can  see  Him 
in  the  more  artless,  natural,  and  unstudied  accounts 
of  His  doings  that  have  come  down  to  us  from  those 
who  stood  nearest  to  His  earthly  life;  perhaps  one 
can  even  see  Him  best  in  what  these  recorders  do  not 
seem  to  have  considered  of  first  importance  and  best 
worth  preserving.  It  is  to  me  a  truly  amazing  thing 
that  academic  theories  can  so  blind  the  vision  of  able 
men  to  reasonable  probabilities  that  their  vision  of 
Christ  blots  out  the  face  of  Jesus.  For  my  own  part, 
the  precise  opposite  would  be  nearer  the  truth.  One 
might,  perhaps,  dispense  with  the  abstract  Christ,  or, 
rather,  with  the  perplexing  doctrines  that  have  been 
spun  around  Him,  but  one  cannot  dispense  with  the 
Jesus  who  made  the  Christ  live.  He  is  there  all  the 
time,  half  hidden  in  what  has  been  said  about  Him, 
greatly  mysterious,  but  strong,  true,  wonderful,  the 
being  who  has  consecrated  for  all  time  suffering  will- 
ingly accepted  as  the  means  of  uniting  man  and  God. 
If  the  religious  imagination  were  wanting  to  invent  a 
savior  it  would  not  begin  by  nailing  Him  on  a  cross. 
Thus  far  the  cleavage  of  opinion  went  in  the  ranks 


THE  NEW  THEOLOGY  201 


of  the  religious  liberals  with  whom  I  was  associated 
at  the  beginning  of  1910.  My  own  position  in  re- 
gard thereto  is  sufficiently  indicated  above.  But  mat- 
ters could  not  rest  there.  A  further  development 
was  inevitable. 


CHAPTER  IX 


THE  NEW  THEOLOGY:  THE  PARTING  OF  THE 

WAYS 

The  cleavage  soon  grew  wider,  and  by  the  begin- 
ning of  1911  it  had  become  obvious  to  me  that  the 
problem  thus  raised  was  too  serious  to  be  relegated 
to  a  secondary  place.  I  was  continually  pressed  by 
my  people,  and  by  readers  of  my  sermons  generally, 
to  deal  with  the  subject  in  a  definite  pronouncement 
and  give  reasons  for  my  own  attitude.  I  did  so  in 
the  following  dissertation,  spoken  from  the  City 
Temple  pulpit  to  my  Thursday  morning  city  congre- 
gation on  January  26.  Even  at  the  possible  cost  of 
wearying  my  readers  I  have  thought  it  best  to  include 
it  in  full,  exactly  as  it  originally  appeared. 

In  obedience  to  many  requests,  and  in  fulfillment  of 
a  promise  made  from  this  pulpit  a  few  weeks  ago,  I 
wish  to  say  something  this  morning  upon  the  subject 
of  the  Christ-Myth  controversy  which  has  been  raised 
once  more  in  Germany  and  whose  echoes  are  being 
heard  in  this  country.  I  assume  that  you  all  know 
something  of  the  main  issue  in  that  controversy. 
Briefly  put,  it  is  the  question  whether  any  such  person 
as  Jesus  Christ  has  ever  existed  in  the  flesh,  or 

202 


THE  PARTING  OF  THE  WAYS  203 

whether  the  belief  in  Him  as  an  historical  figure  is 
merely  the  dramatized  expression  of  a  certain  spiritual 
experience,  the  soul's  experience  of  communion  with 
God  under  one  specialized  aspect — the  aspect  known 
as  the  mystical  Christ  of  Christian  faith.  That  is  the 
issue,  and,  as  you  will  readily  admit,  it  is  one  in  which 
the  most  opposite  views  may  be  taken,  and  are  being 
taken,  by  profoundly  religious  and  spiritually  minded 
men.  I  confess  that  I  enter  upon  the  discussion  of 
it  this  morning  somewhat  reluctantly,  for  I  am  anx- 
ious to  avoid  controversy,  and  I  may  as  well  tell  you 
frankly  at  the  outset  that  nothing  will  induce  me  to 
reply  to  anyone  who  differs  from  me  in  the  conclu- 
sions at  which  I  have  arrived  on  this  subject.  All  I 
want  to  do  is  to  state  my  own  belief,  and  the  reasons 
why  I  hold  it,  and  leave  them  to  your  judgment. 

Further,  let  me  clear  the  ground  by  saying  this: 
I  am  quite  conscious  of  the  impossibility  of  disposing 
of  a  theme  so  vast  and  complex  as  the  one  before  us 
in  the  course  of  a  forty  minutes'  address ;  one  can  do 
no  more  than  touch  upon  its  outstanding  features  and 
leave  subsidiary  matters  alone.  Quite  sufficient  can 
be  said  even  within  the  limits  of  an  ordinary  discourse 
to  indicate  the  main  reasons  for  or  against  a  partic- 
ular point  of  view. 

The  case  of  the  upholders  of  the  myth  theory  as 
being  sufficient  to  account  for  the  rise  of  Christianity 
without  the  necessity  of  postulating  an  historical 
Jesus  is  in  substance  as  follows.  (I  refer  more  par- 
ticularly to  the  recent  work  of  a  German  philosopher, 
Professor  Drews,  but  the  statement  applies  in  greater 


204      A  SPIRITUAL  PILGRIMAGE 


or  less  degree  to  the  whole  school  he  represents. )  The 
idea  of  a  Messiah,  or  Christ,  a  supernatural  being 
who  comes  into  this  world  to  save  humanity  from  its 
ills  and  unite  it  to  God,  is  much  older  than  Chris- 
tianity and  has  been  associated  with  many  admittedly 
non-historical  names.  Thus,  Mithras,  a  supposed  in- 
carnation or  expression  of  the  sungod,  the  eternal 
source  of  life  and  light,  was  at  one  time  so  extensively 
worshiped  as  to  be  able  to  dispute  with  early  Chris- 
tianity the  conquest  of  the  Roman  Empire  itself,  and 
with  it  the  whole  western  world.  Mithras  worship 
was  of  Persian  origin,  and  Persia  had  been  influencing 
Jewish  religious  conceptions  for  five  centuries  before 
Christianity  was  born.  In  the  cult  of  Mithras  were 
included  some  of  the  ideas  which  are  now  popularly 
believed  to  have  been  peculiar  to  and  most  character- 
istic of  the  Christian  revelation,  such  as  the  apocalyp- 
tic Kingdom  of  God,  the  Resurrection,  and  the  Last 
Judgment.  Then  in  Greek  thought  we  get  the  idea 
of  a  divine  Mediator,  or  Logos,  through  whom  God 
produces  and  sustains  the  universe — an  idea  which 
in  my  judgment  has  still  a  considerable  religious 
value.  This  Logos  was  personified  in  various  ways 
in  Greek  cults  and  mystery  worship  at  the  beginning 
of  the  Christian  era,  as,  for  example,  in  the  Orphic 
rites.  The  name  Jesus,  too,  according  to  the  authori- 
ties whose  view  I  am  now  stating,  appears  in  various 
forms  as  that  of  the  pre-Christian  cult  god.  Joshua, 
for  instance,  the  leader  under  whom  the  Israelites 
were  said  to  have  conquered  Canaan,  says  Professor 
Drews,  "is  apparently  an  ancient  Ephraimitic  God 


THE  PARTING  OF  THE  WAYS  205 


of  the  Sun  and  Fruitfulness" — an  unsupported  as- 
sumption— and  Joshua  simply  means  Jesus.  There 
are  many  other  signs,  he  maintains,  that  Joshua  or 
Jesus  was  the  name  by  which  the  Jews  most  fre- 
quently designated  their  expected  Messiah,  because 
the  word  Jesus  means  savior  or  healer.  He  identi- 
fies the  important  pre-Christian  sect  called  the  Es- 
senes  with  this  name — that  is,  "Jessenes"  (another  un- 
provable assumption),  believers  in  the  God  Jesse  or 
Jesus.  The  very  idea  of  a  suffering  Messiah,  which 
Christians  have  been  taught  to  regard  as  unheard  of 
before  the  crucifixion  of  their  Master,  and  as  alto- 
gether intolerable  to  the  Jews,  who  rejected  Jesus  on 
that  account,  was,  as  a  matter  of  fact,  one  of  the 
commonest  in  the  ancient  world.  It  appears  in  the 
religions  of  Babylon,  Egypt,  and  Greece,  over  and 
over  again,  not  to  speak  of  many  other  faiths  and 
nationalities;  the  Jews  must  have  been  thoroughly 
familiar  with  it.  The  same  is  true  of  the  various  inci- 
dents related  in  the  New  Testament  concerning  the 
Nativity  and  childhood  of  Jesus.  No  doctrine  is  more 
ancient  than  that  of  the  virgin  birth  of  the  king  of 
Heaven;  and  everything  connected  with  that  birth — 
the  song  of  the  angels,  the  adoration  by  the  Magi,  the 
massacre  of  the  innocents,  and  the  flight  into  Egypt 
— has  its  parallel  in  older  faiths,  from  India  west- 
ward. Even  the  beautiful  Christmas  idyll  of  the 
Holy  Child,  whose  birthplace  was  a  stable  and  cradle 
a  manger,  is  anticipated  in  its  most  essential  features 
in  the  Buddha  and  Krishna  myths.  It  is — I  am  not 
now  quoting  anyone  in  particular,  but  giving  a  gen- 


206      A  SPIRITUAL  PILGRIMAGE 


eral  statement  of  the  views  of  the  whole  school  of 
critics  with  whom  we  are  concerned — a  symbolic  pres- 
entation of  the  cosmic  phenomenon  of  the  rebirth 
of  the  sun  at  the  beginning  of  the  new  year.  Thus, 
the  Cretan  Zeus  was  born  in  a  cavern,  Mithras  and 
Hermes  in  a  gloomy  grotto,  Horus  in  a  stable — 
that  is,  in  the  constellation  of  the  Ox  through  which 
the  sun  passes  after  the  winter  solstice.  As  to  the 
symbols  of  the  Messiah,  the  Lamb  and  the  Cross,  both 
of  these  are  as  old  as  the  oldest  historic  religion.  The 
Lamb,  agnus,  is  said  to  be  a  figure  of  the  god  of 
fire,  Agni.  The  Cross  is  not  essentially  a  symbol 
of  suffering,  but  of  the  blazing  sun,  whose  rays  are 
of  cruciform  shape.  That  self -offering  is  associated 
both  with  the  Lamb  and  the  Cross  is  natural  enough 
when  we  consider  what  the  forth-pouring  of  the  light 
of  the  sun  means  in  the  life  of  the  world;  he  is  per- 
petually dying  and  rising  again,  not  only  in  the 
heavens,  but  in  everything  that  lives  on  the  earth. 
What  more  likely  than  that  the  thoughtful  religious 
minds  of  antiquity  should  see  in  these  natural  phe- 
nomena a  visible  representation  of  a  deeper  kind  of 
cosmic  fact,  the  fact  of  the  self -offering  of  God  in 
and  for  the  soul  of  man?  But  it  is  a  fact  which  can- 
not be  exclusively  associated  with  any  one  historical 
person,  or,  indeed,  with  any  historical  person  what- 
soever. 

But  it  is  when  we  leave  these  extra-Christian 
parallels  to,  or  rather  anticipations  of,  the  Christian 
Christ,  and  come  to  what  specific  Christian  sources 
have  to  tell  us  of  Jesus,  that  the  case  I  am  presenting 


THE  PARTING  OF  THE  WAYS  207 


acquires  most  force.  According  to  Professor  Drews 
and  others,  it  is  Paul,  not  Jesus,  who  is  the  real 
creator  of  Christianity.  Paul  found  the  belief  in  a 
Jesus-God  already  existing  throughout  Asia  Minor, 
and,  embracing  it  with  the  whole  force  of  his  nature 
as  satisfying  his  religious  needs,  established  it  by  his 
genius  in  a  permanent  position  which  it  never  would 
otherwise  have  occupied.  The  principal  authority  I 
have  just  quoted  makes  the  very  questionable  state- 
ment that  only  the  epistles  to  the  Romans, 
Corinthians,  and  Galatians  can  be  considered  of 
Pauline  authorship,  if,  indeed,  Paul  ever  wrote  any 
of  the  letters  which  now  stand  in  his  name.  He  then 
goes  on  to  insist  that  Paul  not  only  has  no  interest  in 
the  historical  Jesus,  but  never  really  believed  in  him ; 
that,  as  a  matter  of  fact,  none  of  the  Pauline  utter- 
ances refers  to  an  actual  person  who  had  lived  on  earth, 
but  to  the  eternal  Son  of  God  who  is  born,  suffers, 
dies,  and  rises  in  glory  in  human  life  as  a  whole. 
Then,  as  to  the  Jesus  of  the  gospels :  after  ruling  out 
the  fourth,  which  practically  all  expert  critics  admit 
to  be  a  doctrinal  treatise  instead  of  a  biography,  there 
remain  only  Matthew,  Mark,  and  Luke  as  sources 
of  information  concerning  what  the  Master  is  believed 
to  have  done  and  said.  Here  is  the  main  battle- 
ground. These  gospel  stories,  so  the  school  of  critics 
whose  views  I  am  stating  roundly  declares,  are  no 
more  narrations  of  fact  than  those  contained  in  the 
Gospel  of  J ohn ;  nowhere  do  they  afford  us  a  glimpse 
of  a  truly  human  personality;  Jesus,  as  presented  in 
these  stories,  is  simply  unintelligible;  no  such  being 


208      A  SPIRITUAL  PILGRIMAGE 


could  ever  have  existed.  The  conclusion  arrived  at 
by  Professor  Drews  and  all  who  think  with  him, 
therefore,  is  that  the  Jesus  of  the  New  Testament 
is  a  product  of  the  religious  imagination,  an  ideal,  a 
symbol,  and  that  the  belief  in  Him  is  of  the  same 
order  as  the  beliefs  concerning  the  non-Christian 
Christs  I  have  just  been  mentioning :  Mithras,  Osiris, 
Krishna,  Apollo,  and  the  rest. 

Lack  of  time  must  be  my  excuse  for  not  stating  at 
greater  length  the  arguments  for  this  conclusion,  but 
I  hope  you  will  agree  that  I  have  at  least  stated  it 
frankly  and  fairly,  suppressing  nothing  that  would 
tell  materially  in  its  favor.  I  will  go  farther  and 
acknowledge  with  readiness  that  the  particular  group 
of  scholars  I  have  in  mind  is  composed  of  men  who, 
unlike  many  who  have  previously  denied  the  his- 
toricity of  Jesus,  do  so  because  they  believe  intensely 
in  the  existence  of  a  real  living  Christ,  a  God-man,  an 
eternal  divine  being  who  is  the  source  of  humanity 
itself  and  "in  whom  all  things  consist."  This  is  a 
most  valuable  point  which  ought  not  to  be  lost  sight 
of  in  our  estimate  of  their  work.  They  do  not  be- 
lieve that  this  Christ  is  merely  an  idea ;  he  is  to  them 
a  fact — indeed,  the  fact  of  facts — without  which  it 
would  be  impossible  to  account  for  human  nature  or 
our  presence  in  this  world.  This  is  something  com- 
paratively new,  and  very  striking,  in  the  history  of 
critical  attacks  upon  the  Christian  sources.  It  is  not 
all  negative;  it  is  mainly  affirmative;  it  is,  in  fact,  a 
strong  reassertion  of  the  thing  that  is  most  vital  to 
the  Christian  religion — namely,  unhindered  com- 


THE  PARTING  OF  THE  WAYS  209 


munion  with  the  Christ  of  faith.  But  they  hold  that, 
instead  of  looking  for  this  Christ  of  faith  in  someone 
called  Jesus  who  lived  long  ago,  we  should  look  for 
Him  in  every  human  heart  and  in  the  cumulative 
spiritual  experience  of  the  whole  human  race. 

Will  you  now  allow  me  to  state,  as  briefly  and 
clearly  as  I  can,  my  reasons  for  dissenting  from  the 
merely  negative  side  of  the  critical  results  we  have 
been  surveying,  while  giving  a  cordial  indorsement 
to  the  positive?  After  that,  I  shall  submit  to  you 
one  or  two  considerations,  not  of  a  critical  character, 
which  have  done  most  to  confirm  me  in  my  belief  in 
the  historicity  of  Jesus  of  Nazareth,  who,  in  my  ex- 
perience, is  inseparable  from  the  eternal  Christ. 

In  the  first  place,  I  deny  that  the  antiquity  of  the 
Christ-idea,  or  any  aspect  of  it,  no  matter  with  what 
name  or  religion  it  has  been  previously  associated,  is 
a  presumption  against  belief  in  an  actual  historical 
Jesus  who,  for  all  time,  has  made  it  a  living  force  in 
the  spiritual  evolution  of  mankind.  Why  on  earth 
should  we  concede  any  such  thing?  The  fact  points 
to  the  exact  contrary.  We  ought  reasonably  to  ex- 
pect that  an  idea  so  sublime,  born  of  a  spiritual  neces- 
sity so  deep,  should  have  been  adumbrated  ages  be- 
fore it  was  concentrated  in  the  personality  of  our 
Lord  Jesus  Christ.  So  far  from  being  concerned  at 
its  anticipation  in  so  many  ways  and  in  so  many  na- 
tions before  Jesus  was  born,  I  rejoice  that  it  was  so; 
it  simply  demonstrates  with  enormously  added  force 
the  necessity  and  universality  of  the  Christian  gospel 
in  its  historic  setting.   Why  has  the  Christian  Christ 


210      A  SPIRITUAL  PILGRIMAGE 


survived  and  absorbed  into  Himself  all  the  devotion 
formerly  given  to  these  various  pagan  christs?  Why? 
Because  Christianity  has  been  able  to  proclaim  not 
only  a  living  Christ,  but  a  living  Jesus.  "The  word 
was  made  flesh  and  dwelt  among  us."  "That  which 
was  from  the  beginning,  which  we  have  heard,  which 
we  have  seen  with  our  eyes,  which  we  have  looked 
upon,  and  our  hands  have  handled,  of  the  Word  of 
life  .  .  .  that  which  we  have  seen  and  heard  declare 
we  unto  you."  This  is  the  real  reason  why  Chris- 
tianity has  prevailed  over  its  rivals  and  predecessors; 
it  had  a  Christ  of  faith  to  offer  who  was  not  only  the 
fulfillment  of  the  best  that  the  spiritual  minds  of  an- 
tiquity had  ever  dreamed,  but  an  historic  personality 
who  was  equal,  and  more  than  equal,  to  the  expres- 
sion of  that  ideal  in  terms  of  a  single  human  life. 
Now  I  venture  to  challenge  all  the  negative  criticism 
of  the  Christian  sources  that  has  yet  seen  the  light 
to  explain  away  this  one  fact  if  it  can.  Why  in  the 
name  of  all  that  is  reasonable  should  Christianity  be 
the  one  faith  with  spiritual  force  enough  in  it  to  over- 
throw the  Pantheon  of  old  Rome  and  establish  itself 
on  the  ruins  of  the  innumerable  cults  which  competed 
for  supremacy  in  western  civilization  in  the  early  cen- 
turies of  our  era?  Why,  indeed?  It  had  no  impos- 
ing advantages;  its  adherents  belonged  in  the  main 
to  the  poorer  classes ;  they  were  despised  and  ridiculed 
by  the  intellectuals,  even  when  they  were  not  perse- 
cuted by  the  State.  There  was  nothing  in  their 
favor  so  far  as  worldly  opportunity  was  concerned. 
They  succeeded  by  one  thing  and  one  thing  only,  and 


THE  PARTING  OF  THE  WAYS  211 


that  was  the  loftiness  and  purity  of  their  religious 
ideal  coupled  with  their  intense  devotion  to  the  person 
of  their  Lord.  These  facts  did  not  arise  out  of  noth- 
ing; they  never  do;  they  are  always  the  fruit  of  per- 
sonality. It  is  not  abstract  ideas  which  make  history ; 
it  is  ideas  embodied  in  personality.  Who  was  the 
personality  that  communicated  the  original  impetus 
to  the  Christian  religion,  starting  it  on  a  spiritual 
level  high  enough  to  insure  its  victory  over  all  other 
so-called  "Christ-cults"  of  the  west?  Who?  Certainly 
not  Paul,  for  it  was  there  before  Paul,  and  Paul's 
own  devotion  to  the  personality  needs  accounting  for; 
it  did  not  arise  out  of  an  impersonal  enthusiasm  with 
nothing  behind  it  but  the  apostle's  own  imagination; 
it  was  born  of  something  real  and  definite,  something 
so  strong  and  overpowering  as  to  revolutionize  Paul's 
whole  being.  Is  there  any  need  to  argue  the  ques- 
tion? Why  go  behind  the  testimony  of  the  first 
Christians  themselves?  The  personality  to  whom 
they  owed  their  spiritual  quickening,  the  elevation  of 
their  idea  of  Christ,  and  their  invincible  confidence 
in  the  spirituality  of  life  and  the  final  victory  of  the 
good,  was  Jesus  of  Nazareth.  I  repeat  then,  that, 
so  far  from  the  antiquity  of  the  Christ  idea  being  a 
bar  to  the  belief  in  the  historical  Jesus,  it  immensely 
strengthens  it;  it  shows  what  the  world  wanted  and 
was  feeling  after;  it  only  needed  the  advent  of  a 
transcendent  personality,  a  true  divine  manhood,  to 
set  that  idea  aglow  and  make  it  the  mighty  spiritual 
force  we  know  it  to  be  now.  This  conclusion  appears 
to  me  inevitable;  and  one  thing  is  certain — it  cannot 


212      A  SPIRITUAL  PILGRIMAGE 

be  overthrown  by  any  of  the  evidence  which  has  been 
adduced  up  to  the  present;  indeed,  as  I  have  just 
said,  the  main  argument  of  the  supporters  of  the 
myth  theory  tells  exactly  the  other  way. 

As  to  Paul's  specific  contribution  to  Christianity, 
I  am  more  than  willing  to  admit  the  substantial  truth 
of  all  that  Professor  Drews  and  those  who  agree  with 
him  argue  concerning  the  mystical  nature  of  the  great 
apostle's  experience  of  his  relationship  to  Christ.  I 
have  taught  it  myself  for  a  good  many  years.  It  is 
unmistakable  that  in  some  of  Paul's  finest  utterances 
he  is  thinking  of  the  whole  drama  of  redemption  as 
taking  place  within  the  soul  of  the  believer.  Thus: 
"Our  old  man  is  crucified  with  him  that  the  body  of 
sin  might  be  destroyed" ;  "if  we  be  dead  with  Christ, 
we  believe  that  we  shall  also  live  with  Him"; 
"we,  being  many,  are  one  body  in  Christ,  and 
everyone  members  one  of  another";  "if  any  man 
be  in  Christ,  he  is  a  new  creature";  "I  am  crucified 
with  Christ:  nevertheless  I  live;  yet  not  I,  but  Christ 
liveth  in  me";  "God  forbid  that  I  should  glory,  save 
in  the  Cross  of  our  Lord  Jesus  Christ,  whereby  the 
world  is  crucified  unto  me  and  I  unto  the  world."  All 
these  sayings  are  of  the  mystical  order;  they  would 
be  as  true  of  an  inner  experience,  without  any  objec- 
tive fact  to  which  to  relate  them,  as  they  would  be  if 
Paul  had  been  one  of  the  band  of  disciples  who  fol- 
lowed Jesus  during  His  earthly  ministry.  Unques- 
tionably, too,  Paul  borrowed  a  good  deal  of  his  the- 
ological imagery  from  non-Christian  sources  such  as 
those  I  have  already  indicated.    No  doubt  he  was 


THE  PARTING  OF  THE  WAYS  213 


well  acquainted  with  most  of  them;  he  could  hardly 
fail  to  be  so.  All  the  existing  conceptions  about  the 
dying  and  rising  God,  the  apocalyptic  kingdom,  the 
Resurrection,  the  Last  Judgment,  the  Divine  Medi- 
ator, and  the  like,  must  have  been  quite  familiar  to 
him ;  they  were  in  the  air ;  he  lived  and  moved  amongst 
them,  and  was  almost  compelled  to  do  his  religious 
thinking  in  terms  of  them.  But  to  say  that  he  did 
not  himself  believe  in  Jesus  as  an  historical  person  to 
whom  to  relate  them  is  sheer  nonsense,  and  the  fact 
that  such  an  assertion  can  be  made  only  shows  to 
what  a  length  a  preconceived  theory  will  carry 
intelligent  men.  It  is  untrue  that  the  consensus  of 
New  Testament  scholarship  amounts  to  a  denial  of 
the  authenticity  of  all  Pauline  epistles  except  those 
I  have  already  mentioned;  to  say  that  he  was  the 
author  of  none  is  an  unwarrantable  assumption  with- 
out a  shadow  of  proof;  it  is  criticism  run  mad. 

But  even  if  we  confine  ourselves  to  the  epistles 
which  Professor  Drews  and  his  school  admit  to  be 
Paul's  if  Paul  wrote  anything,  even  an  untutored  eye 
can  see  that  the  apostle  is  writing  of  a  Christ  whom 
he  believes  to  have  lived  on  earth  as  a  man,  and  that 
in  his  own  lifetime.  In  the  very  interesting  account 
of  his  call  to  preach  given  in  the  first  chapter  of  Gala- 
tians,  he  mentions  both  Peter  and  "James,  the  Lord's 
brother"  as  persons  with  whom  he  consulted.  The 
plain  man  would  say  that  here  is  a  narrative  of  plain 
fact  which  is  either  true  or  untrue,  and  the  way  in 
which  Professor  Drews  tries  to  explain  it  away  is  fan- 
tastic in  the  extreme.    It  seems  that  the  "Lord's 


214      A  SPIRITUAL  PILGRIMAGE 

brother"  did  not  mean  a  real  brother,  but  was  merely 
a  figure  of  speech  to  denote  a  certain  grade  in  the 
Christian  society !  Or  else  the  passage  is  a  deliberate 
insertion  in  the  narrative  to  make  it  appear  that  Paul 
knew  the  family  of  Jesus!  Exactly;  as  soon  as  the 
New  Testament  facts  refuse  to  fit  in  with  our  critic's 
theory  they  are  to  be  brushed  aside  without  reason 
given.  Peter,  he  gravely  assures  us,  is  a  mere  phan- 
tom in  this  place  as  elsewhere.  So  the  extremely 
lifelike  account  in  the  very  next  chapter  of  Paul's 
opposition  to  Peter  on  account  of  his  attitude  on  the 
question  of  circumcision  goes  for  nothing,  because  it 
does  not  suit  Professor  Drews.  "When  Peter  was 
come  to  Antioch,  I  withstood  him  to  the  face,  because 
he  was  to  be  blamed.  For  before  that  certain  came 
from  James,  he  did  eat  with  the  Gentiles:  but  when 
they  were  come,  he  withdrew  and  separated  himself, 
fearing  them  which  were  of  the  circumcision."  These 
are  awkward  statements  for  those  who  try  to  make 
out  that  Paul  had  no  first-hand  knowledge  of  the  real 
Jesus  through  those  originally  associated  with  Him, 
so  the  negative  critics  calmly  excise  them.  This  will 
not  do ;  it  is  not  criticism,  but  groundless  speculation, 
which  should  carry  no  weight  with  any  unbiassed 
mind.  The  unassailable  testimony  of  those  Pauline 
writings,  the  genuineness  of  which  the  extremest 
criticism  has  not  yet  managed  to  disprove,  is  that  Paul 
did  know  face  to  face  the  men  who  were  the  first 
preachers  of  the  gospel  of  Jesus,  including  the  Mas- 
ter's own  kinsfolk.  It  was,  therefore,  to  an  historic 
personality  that  his  allegiance  was  first  given  when  he 


THE  PARTING  OF  THE  WAYS  215 


entered  upon  his  vocation  as  a  Christian  preacher,  and 
it  was  around  this  historic  personality  that  he  wove  all 
his  later  experience  of  the  risen  Christ. 

Into  the  question  of  gospel  criticism  I  shall  not 
enter  this  morning,  nor  is  there  urgent  need  to  do  so. 
The  Pauline  epistles  are  earlier  than  the  gospels  in 
their  present  form,  and  these  alone  are  quite  sufficient 
to  demonstrate  the  fact  that  the  primitive  Christian 
society  began  with,  and  was  the  outcome  of,  the  work 
of  an  historical  person  who  can  only  be  identified  with 
the  Jesus  of  the  gospels.  It  is  a  disputable  point 
whether  the  Jesus  of  Matthew,  Mark,  and  Luke  is  a 
consistent  figure,  so  clearly  portrayed  as  to  be  recog- 
nizable as  such.  The  widely  different  interpretations 
of  His  character  and  aims  which  are  being  given  by 
trained  interpreters  of  the  gospel  sources  even  today 
render  it  impossible  to  pronounce  a  final  verdict  with 
certainty.  I  will  only  say  this :  that,  broadly  speak- 
ing, the  Christian  idea  of  Jesus  has  presented  cer- 
tain unchangeable  features,  and  none  of  these  has 
been  destroyed  by  anything  that  criticism  has  yet  ad- 
vanced. Majesty  combined  with  humility,  strength 
with  gentleness,  infinite  love  with  inflexible  sternness 
in  the  treatment  of  wrong— these  are  elements  in  the 
character  of  Jesus  which  have  persisted  through  all 
the  ages  in  what  His  followers  have  believed  about 
Him,  and  these  are  the  very  qualities  which  stand  out 
most  clearly  in  the  gospel  accounts  of  Him,  whatever 
else  may  be  there.  Recollect,  too,  that  these  were  not 
qualities  which  were  universally  accepted  as  admir- 
able at  the  time  when  Christianity  first  appeared; 


216      A  SPIRITUAL  PILGRIMAGE 


they  had  to  win  their  way  in  the  teeth  of  opposition 
and  contempt.  Readers  of  such  a  work  as  Lecky's 
History  of  European  Morals  will  not  need  to  be  re- 
minded that  the  Christian  character  type  had  to  meas- 
ure itself  against  and  overthrow  moral  standards 
which  claimed  to  be  superior.  It  is  hard  for  us  to 
realize  this,  but  if  we  can  realize  it  in  some  degree  it 
will  serve  to  show  how  striking  and  distinctive  is  the 
gospel  portrait  of  the  Master,  after  all.  It  would  not 
be  so  wonderful  now  as  it  was  then,  for  nineteen  hun- 
dred years  of  Christianity  have  effected  a  drastic 
change  in  men's  ideas  of  what  constitutes  moral  excel- 
lence.  More  I  need  not  say. 

In  conclusion  let  me  give  you  in  a  few  sentences 
two  strong  reason  why  I  myself  cling  to  the  Jesus  of 
history  as  being  one  with  the  Christ  of  faith.  The 
first  is  that,  as  I  said  from  this  pulpit  a  week  or  two 
ago,  I  feel  that  I  know  Jesus  as  Jesus.  The  Jesus  of 
glory  is  to  me  a  living  being  dwelling  with  me  day  by 
day,  and  guiding  and  directing  me  in  the  work  I  am 
trying  to  do.  Jesus  Christ  is  central  for  my  spiritual 
life:  I  worship  Him,  and  I  trust  my  soul  to  Him.  I 
admit  that  this  is  a  purely  subjective  argument,  but 
it  is  one  which  is  justified  by  results,  and  there  is 
abundance  of  testimony  in  favor  of  it.  Millions  have 
lived  and  died  before  and  since  Bernard  of  Clairvaux 
wrote  his  famous  lines — 

Jesus,  the  very  thought  of  Thee 
With  sweetness  fills  my  breast; 

But  sweeter  far  Thy  face  to  see, 
And  in  Thy  presence  rest — 


THE  PARTING  OF  THE  WAYS  217 


millions  who  could  say  the  same  thing.  He  is  very 
real  to  spiritual  experience,  this  Jesus,  so  real  that 
not  all  the  theorizing  in  the  world  is  going  to  displace 
Him  from  the  hearts  of  those  who  hold  fellowship 
with  Him.  This  is  an  argument  which  no  serious 
student  of  religion  can  afford  to  dismiss  with  con- 
tempt, the  argument  from  experience  of  continuous 
communion  with  a  glorified  Lord  who  has  lived  our 
life  on  earth  and  won  the  fight  which  we  have  yet  to 
win  by  faith  in  Him.  The  religious  value  of  this  ex- 
perience is  beyond  our  power  to  compute.  Nothing 
could  compensate  for  the  loss  of  it.  Without  it  spir- 
itual life  would  certainly  be  poorer;  no  one  in  his 
sober  senses  would,  I  imagine,  believe  that  it  would  be 
richer;  we  should  have  much  to  lose  and  nothing  to 
gain  in  being  deprived  of  it.  Surely  this  fact  alone 
is  presumptive  proof  of  the  reliability  of  its  historic 
basis.  Take  away  from  your  faith  in  Christ  the  belief 
that  that  Christ  has  once  been  manifested  in  one  tran- 
scendent human  personality  and  you  have  immeasur- 
ably weakened  its  force.  The  human  heart  does  cry 
out  for  a  high  priest  who  has  been  "touched  with  the 
feeling  of  our  infirmities" — 

Whose  feet  have  toiled  along  our  pathways  rough, 
Whose  lips  drawn  human  breath. 

I  thoroughly  agree  with  the  wise  saying  that  if  we 
had  never  had  such  a  Christ,  a  Christ  after  the  flesh, 
we  should  be  craving  for  one  now  as  the  one  great 
need  of  our  earthly  life. 


218      A  SPIRITUAL  PILGRIMAGE 


And  this  brings  me  to  the  last  point,  which  may  be 
stated  thus :  If  God  were  to  disappoint  this  craving, 
if  what  untold  millions  have  thought,  and  felt,  and 
prayed  concerning  the  divinely  human  Master  of  the 
race  be  not  the  truth,  then  there  is  something  wrong 
with  the  moral  government  of  the  universe.  The  re- 
sult would  be  something  more  than  disillusionment :  it 
would  be  disaster.  And  what  better  way  could  God 
have  chosen  for  lifting  mankind  back  to  Himself  than 
by  the  sending  of  one  in  whom  the  perfect  harmony 
of  divine  Sonship  and  Fatherhood  stands  fully  re- 
vealed? Indeed,  what  other  way  is  there?  Someone 
was  needed  to  break  down  the  middle  wall  of  parti- 
tion and  demonstrate  for  all  time  to  come  that  there 
is  no  hard  and  fast  dividing  line  between  humanity 
and  deity,  but  that  when  humanity  stands  at  its  own 
highest  it  towers  up  into  God  and  can  say  with  a  certi- 
tude that  no  evil  can  hinder  or  destroy,  "I  and  my 
Father  are  one." 

This  was  my  last  word  on  the  subject  of  the  his- 
toricity of  Jesus.  I  did  not  feel  conscious  of  any  need 
to  refer  to  it  again.  But  henceforth,  to  my  sorrow, 
I  saw  that  the  liberalism  with  which  my  name  was 
commonly  identified  had  split  upon  the  rock  of 
Christology.  The  old  deistic  liberalism  absorbed  a 
certain  number  of  my  adherents  outside  the  City 
Temple,  while  a  smaller  group  followed  Dr.  Ander- 
son and  those  who  thought  with  him.  A  few  months 
later  I  preached  a  sermon  on  the  Christ  of  the  Newer 
Criticism  in  which  I  described  the  paradoxical  situa- 


THE  PARTING  OF  THE  WAYS  219 


tion  which  had  arisen  through  the  conclusions  arrived 
at  by  the  most  up-to-date  New  Testament  scholar- 
ship. This  sermon  illustrates,  I  think,  as  well  as  any 
the  direction  in  which  my  mind  was  moving.  The 
following  are  its  most  salient  paragraphs. 

Some  time  ago,  you  may  remember,  I  discussed 
with  you  the  question  of  the  historicity  of  Jesus  with 
special  reference  to  the  Christ-Myth  controversy  now 
going  on  amongst  biblical  scholars  and  critics.  All  I 
d;d  then  was  to  try  to  show  that  the  critics  who  main- 
tain that  the  eternal  Christ  has  never  been  specially 
manifested  in  any  one  earthly  personality  have  not 
made  out  their  case ;  on  the  contrary  I  hold  that  apart 
from  the  historical  Jesus  our  devotion  to  the  eternal 
Christ  could  not  have  been  what  it  is  today  or  any- 
thing like  it ;  we  adore  the  Christ  because  He  has  come 
to  us  as  Jesus.  What  should  we  know  about  the 
Christ  today  but  for  Jesus? 

But  there  is  another  aspect  of  this  subject  on  which 
I  did  not  touch,  namely,  what  the  newer  criticism, 
in  the  hands  of  those  who  admit  the  historicity  of 
Jesus,  is  telling  us  about  Him.  Really  this  whole 
field  of  inquiry,  just  now,  is  most  interesting  and 
important  and  everybody  ought  to  know  about  it. 
For,  understand,  the  school  of  critics  which  maintains 
that  the  eternal  Christ  has  never  really  lived  on  earth 
as  J esus  is  a  very  small  one  after  all ;  by  far  the  larger 
number  of  representatives  of  the  newer  criticism  are 
saying  something  quite  diff  erent ;  they  are  saying  that 
Jesus  really  lived,  but  that  He  was  not  at  all  the 


220      A  SPIRITUAL  PILGRIMAGE 


kind  of  person  that  liberal  Protestants  have  imag- 
ined. Let  us  briefly  examine  the  situation  and  you 
will  soon  see  how  the  matter  stands. 

A  generation  or  more  ago,  as  many  of  you  are  old 
enough  to  recollect,  there  was  a  widespread  feeling 
that  an  unprejudiced  examination  of  the  Christian 
sources  would  reveal  to  us  a  winsome  personality,  a 
character  of  enormous  spiritual  force,  at  the  begin- 
ning of  Christian  history,  but  far  different  from  the 
ecclesiastical  Christ,  the  Christ  of  dogma  as  He  has 
been  presented  to  us  for  many  centuries.  Quite  an 
enthusiasm  arose  for  this  view.  People  thought  that 
if  they  could  only  get  at  Jesus  Himself,  Jesus  as  He 
really  was,  Jesus  as  He  lived  and  talked  amongst  the 
fisherfolk  of  Galilee  nearly  two  thousand  years  ago, 
they  would  find  someone  whom  they  could  love  and 
reverence  without  having  to  swallow  all  that  has  since 
become  traditionally  associated  with  His  name. 
They  wanted  "the  lowly  man  of  Galilee,"  the  sweet 
teacher  of  the  fatherhood  of  God  and  the  brother- 
hood of  man,  and  they  firmly  believed  He  was  there 
to  be  found.  What  they  wanted  was  to  disinter  His 
personality  from  the  mass  of  dogmatic  accretions  that 
had  gradually  been  imposed  upon  it,  and  then,  they 
were  sure,  all  would  be  well.  For  a  time  this  tend- 
ency seemed  to  carry  all  before  it,  especially  in  Ger- 
many. We  have  had  a  perfect  cataract  of  lives  of 
Jesus,  studies  of  Jesus,  impressions  of  Jesus,  written 
by  various  experts  more  or  less  on  the  lines  of  Renan 
and  Seeley.  Men  like  Harnack,  Sabatier,  and  Bous- 
set  have  familiarized  us  with  a  picture  of  the  Master 


THE  PARTING  OF  THE  WAYS  221 


from  which  all  the  usual  dogmatic  accompaniments 
have  been  carefully  eliminated.  It  would  not  be  true 
to  say  that  the  Christ  of  liberal  Protestantism,  as  rep- 
resented by  these  authorities,  had  no  divine  attributes ; 
but  in  the  main  it  is  unquestionable  that  they  have 
presented  Him  to  us  as  the  "good  man,"  the  God- 
sent  man,  the  forerunner  of  a  nobler  humanity,  whose 
work  it  was  to  utter  the  simple  message  of  divine  love, 
and  who  was  killed  for  doing  it.  We  were  told  that 
even  those  nearest  to  Him  did  not  clearly  understand 
what  He  was  aiming  at,  and  have  misrepresented 
Him  in  their  reports  of  His  words;  that  He  never 
laid  claim  to  the  position  since  accorded  Him  in  rela- 
tion to  the  Godhead;  and  that  His  pure  spiritual 
teaching  has  been  overlaid  even  in  the  New  Testa- 
ment, and  increasingly  ever  since,  with  an  enormous 
amount  of  superstition  and  irrational  assumption 
derived  from  other  sources  and  utterly  foreign  to  His 
mind. 

But  where  are  we  now?  The  criticism  of  the  gos- 
pel sources  thus  begun  has  gone  farther  than  its  orig- 
inal promoters  ever  dreamed.  Most  reluctantly,  little 
by  little,  step  by  step,  the  newer  criticism  has  been 
forced  to  the  conclusion  that  the  Jesus  of  liberal 
Protestantism  has  never  existed ;  the  real  Jesus  was  a 
very  different  person  from  the  fancy  pictures  of  Him 
painted  by  Renan,  Seeley,  and  all  their  modern  imi- 
tators. He  was  not  the  mildly  reasonable  teacher, 
too  great  for  His  time,  who  essayed  the  vain  task  of 
trying  to  make  His  generation  understand  the  mean- 
ing of  the  word  "love";  He  was  far  nearer  to  the 


222      A  SPIRITUAL  PILGRIMAGE 


ecclesiastical  Christ  than  the  modern  mind  can  readily 
understand.  I  say  that  for  the  most  part  the  critics 
did  not  want  to  arrive  at  this  conclusion.  They 
wanted,  and  expected  to  discover,  a  Jesus  who  was  a 
sort  of  anticipation  nineteen  hundred  years  ago  of  a 
modern  Broad  Churchman.  Against  their  wills  they 
have  been  forced  to  admit  that  He  was  quite  another 
sort  of  person. 

Then  what  sort  of  person  was  Jesus?  Remember 
I  am  trying  to  describe  the  Christ  of  the  newer  criti- 
cism. He  believed  in  all  that  His  contemporaries  be- 
lieved concerning  the  apocalyptic  kingdom,  the  King- 
dom of  God  which  was  to  come  suddenly  by  a  tre- 
mendous invasion  from  above.  He  believed  in  Him- 
self, not  as  an  ordinary  human  being,  but  as  the  Man 
from  Heaven,  the  Son  of  God,  the  superhuman  in- 
strument, long  expected,  long  foretold,  through  whom 
mankind  should  be  brought  into  right  relations  with 
God.  He  believed  He  possessed  a  consciousness  of 
God  such  as  no  one  else  possessed,  and  that  in  virtue 
of  that  consciousness  He  could  mediate  God  to  the 
world  as  no  one  else  could.  He  believed  in  His  own 
preexistence,  as  a  necessary  corollary  to  this  position ; 
He  declared  that  He  had  already  enjoyed  a  dignity 
and  glory  with  His  Father  in  Heaven  which  He  had 
laid  aside  in  order  to  come  to  earth.  He  believed  that 
He  had  come  to  die  a  death  of  mysterious  efficacy, 
and  that  this,  and  not  His  teaching,  was  of  principal 
benefit  to  mankind.  Moreover,  He  believed  that  in 
the  new  dispensation  which  would  follow  upon  His 
death  He  would  be  the  judge  of  the  human  race. 


THE  PARTING  OF  THE  WAYS  223 


This  is  Jesus  as  He  emerges  from  the  newer  criti- 
cism. Was  He  merely  a  self-deluded  visionary?  If 
so,  we  are  forced  to  the  conclusion  that  the  sublimest 
spiritual  movement  the  world  has  ever  known  was  the 
outcome  of  a  madman's  dream.  No  wonder  that 
those  who  expected  to  find  at  the  beginning  of  Christ- 
ianity a  purely  spiritual  teacher  who  made  no  lofty 
pretensions  of  a  supernatural  kind  are  dissatisfied 
with  their  discovery !  But  all  the  same  I  am  thankful 
for  it.  This  Jesus  is  more  nearly  what  I  want  than  a 
teacher  who  was  no  savior  would  have  been,  and  I 
am  far  from  being  alone  in  saying  so  even  among  the 
most  liberal  of  liberal  Christians. 

From  the  foregoing  it  will  be  seen  that  the  Christ- 
Myth  episode  and  its  consequences  had  set  me  to 
work  upon  the  Christological  problem  especially  in 
its  critical  aspects.  For  the  next  few  years  this  was 
the  task  to  which  I  gave  myself  most  assiduously,  as 
indeed  I  have  done  ever  since.  I  have  specialized 
upon  it  so  far  as  time  and  opportunity  would  allow, 
and  some  day,  God  willing,  may  give  to  the  public 
the  results  of  my  labor  and  thought  thereupon.  They 
may  have  a  certain  value  for  the  religious  mind,  and 
they  may  not. 


CHAPTER  X 

WITHDRAWAL  FROM  NONCONFORMITY 

It  was  not  for  some  time  yet  that  the  full  implica- 
tions of  what  I  had  thus  been  learning  and  expressing 
became  clear  to  my  mind,  but  an  uncomfortable  suspi- 
cion had  already  entered  it  that  this  question  of 
Christology  was  determinative  of  more  than  I  was 
readily  willing  to  admit.  It  was  the  Christ  of  the 
Catholic  Church  that  stood  forth  from  the  newer  criti- 
cism of  the  gospel  sources,  not  the  Christ  of  liberal 
Protestantism.  This  was  thrust  forcibly  upon  my 
attention.  The  alternatives  were  obvious:  Either 
Jesus  was  what  the  Catholic  Church  said  He  was  or 
He  did  not  exist;  either  He  was  the  Man  from 
Heaven,  a  complete  break  with  the  natural  order  of 
things,  the  representative  of  a  transcendental  order, 
supernatural,  super-rational,  super-everything,  or  He 
was  nothing.  This  was  scarcely  the  Christ  of  Protes- 
tantism at  all,  whether  liberal  or  conservative.  Tyr- 
rell insisted  that  if  He  were  to  come  again  He  would 
find  Himself  more  at  home  in  the  atmosphere  of 
Catholicism,  with  all  its  faults,  than  in  that  of 
Protestantism.  Catholicism  is  not  afraid  of  the 
supernatural:  Protestantism  is.  Catholicism  is  con- 
sistently apocalyptic  in  its  outlook.  It  dwells  in  mys- 
tery, breathes  that  air,  recognizes  and  allows  for  it  in 

224 


WITHDRAWAL 


225 


all  the  relations  of  life.  It  takes  life  in  its  wholeness 
and  views  it  as  having  spiritual  significance  in  every 
part;  it  does  not  cleave  a  wedge  between  hither  and 
yonder,  material  and  spiritual,  earth  and  Heaven.  It 
makes  the  higher  interpret  the  lower,  the  lower  the 
medium  of  the  higher.  In  a  word  it  is  sacramental. 
The  ideas  and  prepossessions  of  the  age  in  which 
Jesus  lived  and  the  people  among  whom  He  dwelt 
were  much  more  nearly  those  of  Catholic  Christen- 
dom today  than  of  Protestantism ;  the  mental  climate 
in  which  His  work  was  done  was  much  more  nearly 
that  of  Francis  of  Assisi  than  of  Calvin.  I  make  this 
statement  with  no  controversial  import  and  without 
begging  any  question  in  regard  to  it.  I  merely  record 
the  conclusion  to  which  I  felt  obliged  to  come  from  a 
careful  study  of  the  evidence  available.  The  eschato- 
logical  school  did  at  least  that  for  me.  Von  Soden 
was  my  guest  for  a  time  during  the  visit  of  the  Ger- 
man pastors  to  this  country,  and  from  him  I  acquired 
a  sense  of  the  great  importance  of  the  eschatological 
theory  of  the  significance  of  our  Lord's  earthly  minis- 
try. I  followed  this  up  by  a  detailed  study  of  the 
later  literature  of  the  subject,  beginning  with  Otto 
Pfleiderer  and  ending  with  Schweitzer.  Schweitzer's 
book  on  the  Quest  of  the  Historical  Jesus  came  into 
my  hands  about  this  time,  and  though  I  regarded  its 
thesis  as  vulnerable  at  many  points,  I  thought  it  un- 
assailable in  its  main  contention,  that  it  was  utterly 
hopeless  to  try  to  explain  Jesus  in  terms  of  nineteenth- 
or  twentieth-century  liberal  Protestantism.  The 
sane,  well-balanced,  divinely  inspired  apostle  of  sweet 


226      A  SPIRITUAL  PILGRIMAGE 


reasonableness  simply  was  not  there  and  never  had 
been  there.  What  was  there  was  a  being  for  whom  no 
ordinary  human  categories  exist,  and  it  was  this  being 
who.  had  created  Catholic  Christianity  with  its  per- 
petual witness  to  a  perfect  transcendental  order  ever 
invading  and  revealing  itself  through  the  phenomena 
of  the  natural  order. 

Moreover,  I  have  to  acknowledge  that  the  reading 
of  Tyrrell's  book,  Christianity  at  the  Cross  Roads, 
marks  a  definite  point  of  departure  in  my  apprehen- 
sion of  the  significance  of  this  discovery.  In  some 
degree  the  book  annoyed  me  because  so  manifestly  a 
rechauffe  of  Schweitzer  in  its  critical  positions,  but 
it  made  plain  to  me  that  the  Christ  I  was  preaching 
was  the  Christ  whom  the  sacramental  system  of  the 
Catholic  Church  presented  to  mankind  as  liberal 
Protestantism  neither  did  nor  could.  He  was  un- 
doubtedly right.  I  came  now  to  my  own  cross  roads. 
I  saw  that  the  Christ  I  was  preaching  was  not  the 
Christ  in  whom  liberal  Protestants  believed,  whereas 
He  certainly  was  the  Christ  in  whom  Catholics, 
Roman  and  Anglican,  believed.  It  was  here  that  I 
made  the  transition,  not  suddenly  or  definitely,  but 
slowly  and  naturally,  from  the  liberal  Protestant  to 
the  liberal  Catholic  view  of  the  meaning  of  Christian- 
ity and  its  message  to  mankind.  It  was  not  a  violent 
wrench;  it  was  rather  an  opening  of  my  eyes  to  the 
nature  of  my  own  convictions  and  where  they  led. 
For  some  years  yet  I  tried  to  preach  this  Catholic 
Christ,  holding,  as  I  think  my  friend  Mr.  Lloyd 
Thomas  does  to  this  day,  that  the  Catholic  Christ  was 


WITHDRAWAL 


227 


no  monopoly  of  any  ecclesiastical  system  and  could 
be  realized  in  all.  Mr.  Lloyd  Thomas's  idea  of  a  Free 
Catholic  Church  appealed  to  me  very  strongly  save 
and  except  that  I  was  unwilling  to  see  it  identified 
with  any  new  denomination  or  group  of  denomina- 
tions. I  said  over  and  over  again  publicly  and  pri- 
vately that  my  affinities  were  not  with  historic  Prot- 
estantism but  with  Catholicism,  and  that  what  I 
wanted  was  theological  freedom  combined  with  such  a 
view  of  our  individual  and  corporate  relation  to 
Christ  as  the  sacramental  system  of  Catholicism  had 
historically  given.  The  futility  of  this  hope  became 
gradually  apparent  to  my  perceptions  as  time  went 
on.  Either  one  must  stand  within  the  historic  Cath- 
olic order  or  one  must  forego  the  advantages  thus 
desired. 

In  the  meantime  I  had  been  breaking  new  ground 
in  philosophy  by  making  acquaintance  with  Eucken 
and  Bergson.  I  read  both  with  deep  interest  and 
appreciation,  especially  the  former.  I  might  fairly 
count  myself  a  disciple  of  Eucken  from  1910  onward. 
He  had  none  of  Bergson's  beauty  of  style,  was  in- 
volved and  frequently  perplexing,  repeated  himself 
ad  libitum  and  left  many  obscurities  unexplained,  but 
on  the  whole  in  my  judgment  he  did  more  than  any 
thinker  of  our  time  to  demonstrate  the  necessary  asso- 
ciation of  philosophy  and  religion.  Bergson  did  not 
do  this,  and  that  I  suppose  is  why  Rome  has  placed 
his  works  on  the  Index.1    I  once  sent  to  ask  him 

1  Nevertheless,  it  must  be  acknowledged  that  Bergson,  more 
than  any  modern  thinker,  has  insisted  upon  the  insufficiency  of 


228      A  SPIRITUAL  PILGRIMAGE 


whether  one  was  justified  in  considering  his  system,  in 
so  far  as  it  was  a  system,  consistent  with  theism,  but 
his  reply  was  not  encouraging.  If,  as  I  strongly  hold, 
the  great  want  of  our  time  in  the  realm  of  thought  is 
the  reunion  of  philosophy  and  theology,  the  working 
out  of  a  satisfactory  philosophic  system  on  a  defi- 
nitely religious  basis  after  the  fashion  of  scholasticism 
but  with  a  view  to  the  special  needs  of  our  own  age, 
then  we  owe  much  more  as  yet  to  Eucken  than  to 
Bergson.  Eucken's  transcendentalism  laid  firm  hold 
upon  me,  and  from  this  time  forward  I  preached  it 
with  increasing  emphasis.  It  helped  me  to  assimilate 
and  apply  what  New  Testament  criticism  was  giving 
me  with  regard  to  the  person  and  teaching  of  our 
Lord.  My  sermons  of  this  period  and  onward  struck 
more  and  more  firmly  the  note  of  the  distinction  be- 
tween and  inter-relation  of  the  natural  and  the  super- 
natural order  in  all  senses.  Bergson's  immanentism 
did  not  color  my  pulpit  teaching  to  anything  like  the 
same  degree. 

One  of  the  bitterest  disappointments  to  me  in  con- 
nection with  the  world  war  is  the  attitude  which  Pro- 
fessor Eucken  has  seen  fit  to  take  with  reference  to 
our  part  therein.  He  maintains — on  what  grounds  it 
is  impossible  to  understand — that  Great  Britain  is  the 
main  cause  of  it,  that  the  burden  of  the  guilt  of  having 

intellect  to  discover  ultimate  truth,  and  attributes  great  im- 
portance to  intuition  or  spiritual  instinct — in  a  word,  faith.  It 
might  have  been  expected  that  Rome  would  welcome  this  re- 
markable philosophic  vindication  of  one  of  her  most  characteristic 
principles. 


WITHDRAWAL 


229 


brought  it  about  rests  upon  the  shoulders  of  her 
statesmen,  and  that  she  has  deliberately  chosen  to 
throw  herself  on  the  side  of  barbarism  as  opposed  to 
enlightenment.  How  in  the  name  of  all  that  is  high 
and  holy  a  man  of  Eucken's  caliber  can  really  think 
this,  especially  after  the  horrors  that  followed  the 
wanton  German  attack  upon  the  liberties  of  Belgium, 
and  a  thousand  barbarities  besides,  passes  my  compre- 
hension. It  is  with  deep  sadness  that  I  say  good-by 
to  a  master;  not  in  my  time,  at  any  rate,  will  this  per- 
version of  a  moral  judgment  be  made  good.  I  had 
obtained  tentative  promises  both  from  the  German 
and  the  French  savants  to  visit  the  City  Temple  and 
discourse  to  my  people,  but  the  war  put  an  end  to  this 
pleasant  prospect  as  to  many  other  things. 

One  sermon  out  of  many  in  which  this  compara- 
tively new  note  of  insistence  upon  the  transcendental 
began  to  be  heard  in  my  preaching  may  be  quoted 
here  in  illustration  of  what  was  taking  place.  It  was 
an  Advent  sermon  preached  in  1911  in  the  United 
States,  and  was  on  the  subject  of  the  "Intrusion  of 
the  Transcendental,"  from  the  text,  "Thou  shalt  .  .  . 
bring  forth  a  son,  and  shalt  call  his  name  Jesus.  He 
shall  be  great,  and  shall  be  called  the  Son  of  the 
Highest"  (Luke  i,  31).   In  the  course  of  it  I  said: 

The  true  explanation  of  such  a  passage  as  my  text 
is  that  everything  great  and  good,  which  becomes  the 
common  possession  of  mankind,  every  special  incom- 
ing of  God  into  human  experience,  is  prepared  in  the 
unseen  before  it  appears  in  the  seen.    This  sounds  a 


230      A  SPIRITUAL  PILGRIMAGE 


trite  observation,  but  wait  a  moment.  Granted  that 
there  is  a  transcendental  world,  a  world  of  eternal 
blessedness  and  perfection — a  fact  which  my  experi- 
ence no  more  permits  me  to  doubt  than  to  doubt  my 
own  existence — it  is  in  the  highest  degree  probable, 
nay,  inevitable,  that  everything  worth  calling  a  divine 
advent,  every  spiritual  uplift  which  our  sunken  world 
receives,  is  celebrated  with  joy  in  Heaven  before  we 
know  anything  of  it  on  earth.  It  is  known  on  that 
side,  and  known  for  what  it  is,  long  ere  the  moment 
comes  for  its  material  manifestation.  Do  you  not  see 
then  that  such  a  stupendous  event  as  the  incarnation 
of  our  Lord  Jesus  Christ  must  have  been  acclaimed  in 
glory  when  it  was  begun,  and  watched  all  through  its 
course  with  close  and  reverent  interest  by  the  host  of 
Heaven?  Angels  did  indeed  sing  around  the  cradle  of 
the  holy  child,  though  perhaps  their  sweetest  song  no 
mortal  ear  could  hear;  angels  did  minister  to  Him  as 
He  lay  depleted  after  His  lonely  grapple  with  the 
tempter  in  the  wilderness,  though  no  mortal  eye  might 
behold  them ;  yea,  and  in  dark  Gethsemane  itself  they 
wiped  the  blood  drops  from  His  brow,  though  it  may 
be  that  even  He  could  not  feel  them  near  in  that  awful 
hour  of  dereliction  and  woe.  Such  things  are  not 
merely  pious  tradition  but  literal  fact. 

And  do  you  think  it  possible,  granting  this  to  be 
the  case,  that  the  woman  worthy  to  be  the  mother  of 
so  august  a  being,  a  being  destined  to  change  the 
whole  face  of  human  history,  could  have  been  left 
altogether  without  some  intimation  beforehand  as  to 
the  greatness  of  the  privilege  that  was  hers  ?   No  one 


WITHDRAWAL 


231 


can  say  withi  positive  assurance  just  how  it  may  have 
come  to  her,  but  come  it  did.  Lesser  women  than  she 
have  seen  the  veil  between  earth  and  Heaven  parted 
under  similar  circumstances.  In  a  recent  conversation 
which  I  had  with  Sir  Oliver  Lodge — and  which  I 
rather  hesitate  to  quote,  but  it  points  the  statement 
which  I  have  just  made — I  understood  him  to  say 
that  the  conclusion  to  which  he  has  now  come  with 
reference  to  the  inter-relation  of  the  visible  and  invisi- 
ble worlds  makes  him  feel  that  there  must  be  truth  in 
the  numerous  traditions  in  which  history  abounds,  con- 
cerning the  portents  which  have  preceded  the  birth  of 
mighty  souls  into  this  world  and  their  passing  out  of 
it.  He  does  not  think  they  are  all  the  invention  of 
later  generations.  I  quite  agree.  No  spiritual  crisis, 
no  time  of  new  beginnings  on  earth,  can  be  altogether 
unaccompanied  by  some  suggestion  of  the  gathering 
up  of  forces  on  the  side  of  Heaven. 

For  who  was  this  Jesus?  It  can  hardly  be  neces- 
sary to  tell  you  over  again  who  I  think  He  was — or, 
to  put  it  more  emphatically,  who  I  am  sure  He  was. 
He  was  the  focalized  expression,  in  terms  of  one  tran- 
scendent human  personality,  of  the  Christ  eternal  who 
is  the  very  basis  of  our  being.  According  to  the  New 
Testament,  "Of  Him,  and  through  Him,  and  to  Him 
are  all  things,"  and  "all  things  were  created  by  Him 
and  for  Him:  and  He  is  before  all  things,  and  by 
Him  all  things  consist."  He  is  that  aspect  of  the  in- 
finite being  of  God  which  has  produced  the  universe  of 
which  we  form  a  part;  there  may  be  many  more 
aspects  of  God's  infinitude,  but  this  is  the  one  with 


282      A  SPIRITUAL  PILGRIMAGE 


which  we  have  to  do.  It  is  the  aspect  which  philoso- 
phers and  theologians  have  for  ages  called  the  eternal 
Son.  On  the  field  of  time  the  eternal  Son  has  shown 
Himself  as  Jesus.  Henceforth  to  think  of  the  Son  of 
God  is  to  think  of  Jesus.  "He  shall  be  great  and 
shall  be  called  the  Son  of  the  Highest."  And  it  is  in 
rising  into  and  partaking  of  His  divine  sonship  that 
we  find  ours.  "To  as  many  as  received  Him,  to  them 
gave  He  power  to  become  the  sons  of  God,  even  to 
them  that  believe  on  His  name."  That  was  what  He 
came  for,  that  is  what  He  is  doing  still.  As  F.  W.  H. 
Myers  beautifully  says  in  his  Human  Personality 
and  its  Survival  of  Bodily  Death:  "There  is  noth- 
ing to  hinder  the  reverent  faith  that  though  we  be  all 
the  children  of  the  Most  Highest,  He  came  nearer 
than  we,  by  some  space  to  us  immeasurable,  to  that 
which  is  infinitely  far.  There  is  nothing  to  hinder  the 
devout  conviction  that  He  of  His  own  act  took  upon 
Him  the  form  of  a  servant,  and  was  made  flesh  for 
our  salvation,  foreseeing  the  earthly  travail  and  the 
eternal  crown."  A  sentence  of  that  kind  is  all  the 
more  remarkable  from  the  fact  that  he  who  wrote  it 
did  not  come  to  this  conviction  along  the  line  of  Chris- 
tian theology,  but  along  that  of  psychological  investi- 
gation; and  I  believe  I  am  right  in  saying  that  at  the 
time  he  penned  it  he  was  not  a  professing  Christian 
himself. 

But  this  position  leads  to  another  equally  impor- 
tant. Such  a  divine  adventure — if  I  may  so  put  it — 
as  the  incarnation  of  our  Lord  Jesus  Christ,  such  a 
sublime  acceptance  of  the  limitations  of  the  flesh, 


WITHDRAWAL 


233 


meant  a  certain  shutting  out  of  the  full  consciousness 
of  His  true  dignity  in  the  eternal  world.  It  is  impos- 
sible for  anyone  to  say  what  the  earthly  consciousness 
of  Jesus  was  concerning  Himself,  but  from  what  we 
are  told  in  the  synoptical  gospels  it  is  evident  that  it 
was  limited  in  the  same  way,  though  perhaps  not  to 
the  same  degree,  as  yours  and  mine.  St.  Luke  says 
in  this  same  chapter  that  He  "increased  in  wisdom  and 
stature  and  in  favor  with  God  and  man."  I  wonder 
how  He  must  have  felt  when  as  a  boy  He  used  to  climb 
the  hills  that  encircled  the  village  of  Nazareth  and 
contemplated  in  solitude  the  mystery  of  existence. 
What  did  He  feel  about  Himself  when  His  higher 
consciousness  began  to  unfold  and  He  began  to  be 
aware  of  the  stirring  of  unfathomable  deeps  within 
His  soul?  Did  no  awe  ever  sweep  over  Him  as  in 
His  devotions  He  caught  some  faint  suggestion  of  a 
forgotten  greatness,  a  surrendered  glory,  a  world  of 
light  and  beauty  far  transcending  anything  He  had 
ever  known  in  this?  Did  He  ever  wonder  who  He 
was,  ever  try  vainly  to  understand  His  true  vocation, 
and  the  reason  for  His  presence  here,  before  that 
solemn  moment  of  illumination  came  in  the  baptism 
of  Jordan?  All  the  indications  seem  to  point  that 
way,  scanty  as  may  be  the  information  at  our  com- 
mand. The  late  Father  Tyrrell  in  the  last  book  he 
ever  wrote  declares  that  the  secret  which  Jesus  car- 
ried about  with  Him  from  that  day  forward  was  His 
consciousness  of  belonging  to  the  transcendental 
world,  of  being  the  Lord  from  Heaven  of  pious  expec- 
tation, whose  mission  it  was  to  vanquish  evil  through 


234      A  SPIRITUAL  PILGRIMAGE 


suffering,  and  that  He  never  told  this  secret  till  the 
grand  crisis  was  past. 

Professor  Sanday  of  Oxford,  one  of  the  most  dis- 
tinguished of  orthodox  New  Testament  scholars,  in 
his  recently  published,  very  suggestive  study  of  the 
personality  of  the  Master,  puts  forward  the  hypothe- 
sis that  the  deity  of  Jesus  resided  in  His  subcon- 
sciousness, and  that  what  we  would  call  His  waking 
consciousness,  His  everyday  consciousness,  was  truly 
and  certainly  human.  I  cannot  but  feel  that  both  of 
these  theories  are  more  than  mere  speculations.  They 
fit  in  with  the  evidence;  they  describe  just  what  we 
ought  to  expect  if  it  be  true,  as  all  the  highest  spiritual 
experience  has  consistently  affirmed  through  all  ages, 
that  there  is  a  transcendental  world  and  that  a  mighty 
being  once  left  it  in  order  to  take  upon  Himself  our 
burden  and  help  us  to  win  our  fight. 

In  this,  and  the  other  extracts  from  my  sermons 
already  quoted,  there  are  certain  phrases,  such  as  part 
of  the  closing  sentence  of  the  last  paragraph,  which  I 
should  hesitate  to  use  now,  not  because  they  are  heret- 
ical but  because  they  are  of  dubious  meaning ;  they  are 
susceptible  of  an  ambiguous  construction.  I  give 
them  as  they  were  spoken  without  comment,  feeling  it 
to  be  scarcely  necessary. 

A  book  which  exercised  some  influence  upon  my 
thought  at  this  time  should  here  be  mentioned.  It  was 
Dr.  W.  L.  Walker's  Christian  Theism  and  a  Spiritual 
Monism.  It  was  published  in  1906,  but  I  did  not  read 
it  till  five  years  after.  Dr.  Walker's  other  well-known 


WITHDRAWAL 


235 


books,  the  Spirit  and  the  Incarnation  and  the  Cross 
and  the  Kingdom,  I  had  already  made  acquaintance 
with,  but  I  am  not  aware  that  they  made  any  very 
deep  impression  upon  me.  He  also  wrote  a  book 
against  me  in  the  midst  of  the  new  theology  contro- 
versy, which  I  thought  to  be  a  quite  inadequate  treat- 
ment of  the  whole  subject,  and  to  betray  an  imperfect 
understanding  of  what  the  new  liberalism  was  aiming 
at.  How  I  came  to  read  his  Christian  Theism  and  a 
Spiritual  Monism  I  do  not  remember,  but  I  found  it 
very  helpful.  It  clinched  the  conclusions  to  which  I 
was  being  driven  by  the  logic  of  events,  and  its  chapter 
on  the  divine  transcendence,  short  as  it  was,  seemed  to 
me  to  be  a  succinct  and  admirable  statement  in  the 
simplest  terms  of  what  had  been  implicit  in  my  think- 
ing all  along,  but  had  now  become  definitely  explicit. 
The  author's  argument  as  a  whole  has  been  treated 
rather  slightingly  by  some  critics,  but  I  do  not  know 
of  any  who  have  seriously  set  themselves  to  refute  it. 
Says  Dr.  Walker: 

A  Monism,  whether  "physical"  or  "spiritual,"  which  makes 
no  distinction  between  God  and  the  World,  cannot  rise  above 
Pantheism,  or  really  give  us  God.  "Monism,"  as  Science 
leads  us  to  it,  we  repeat,  applies  only  to  the  phenomenal 
world.  Yet  there  is  also  a  higher,  all-embracing  Monism. 
The  apparent  Dualism  that  is  set  up  in  the  initial  act  of 
creation  is  forever  being  transcended;  it  is  not  an  absolute 
but  a  strictly  relative  Dualism,  and,  as  we  have  said,  the 
evolving  world  is  never  separate  from  God  in  His  tran- 
scendency. God  is  in  some  degree  within  it,  and  it  is  always 
contained  in  His  Omnipresence.    The  seeming  Dualism  will 


236      A  SPIRITUAL  PILGRIMAGE 


be  completely  transcended  when  the  Divine  Thought  has 
fully  realized  itself,  when  the  separate  beings  to  whom  the 
Divine  Life  has  been  imparted  become  one  with  God.1 

Discussing  our  relation  to  God  in  his  transcendency 
Dr.  Walker  adds: 

The  Divine  Life  as  it  has  conditioned  itself  for  the  sake 
of  creation  has  so  far  realized  itself  in  our  natural  life  as 
spiritual  beings.  The  Divine  element  that  is  deepest  in  the 
creation  is  at  the  foundation  of  our  life,  and  rises  up 
within  us  in  conscious  personal  form.  For  this  reason  there 
arises  in  us  what  we  term  "religious  aspiration."  Its  source 
is  the  Divine  within  us  which  seeks  its  fullness  of  life  in 
the  Divine  above  us.  There  is  in  us  all,  as  the  deepest 
principle  of  our  being,  an  imminent  Divine  life  that  seeks  its 
unity  or  its  return  to  itself  in  its  completeness  in  the 
unconditioned,  transcendent  Being,  and  to  raise  us,  as  finite 
beings,  into  that  life.  This  is  the  very  essence  and  mean- 
ing of  Religion.  This  is  why  we  have  "a  religious  nature," 
why  we  seek  for  "union  with  God,"  and  "can  never  rest  until 
we  have  found  Him."  In  whatever  form  Religion  comes  to 
us,  this  is  its  essence — union  with  God  in  His  Holy  Spirit 
of  Truth  and  Love.  The  religious  aspiration  is  not  some- 
thing of  man  merely,  but  of  God,  who  is  at  once  in  some 
degree  imminent  in  us  and  also  the  spiritual  environment 
of  our  life.  Not  only  do  we  seek  God,  but  God  is  in  all 
things  seeking  us,  and  as  we  yield  ourselves  to  His  Spirit, 
we  can,  in  prayer,  in  spiritual  communion,  and  in  life  de- 
voted to  His  purposes  and  at  one  with  His  will,  come  into 
real  and  growing  union  with  God  in  His  transcendency. 
It  is  in  full  ethical  and  spiritual  union  with  God  in  His 

1  Christian  Theism  and  a  Spiritual  Monism,  p.  279- 


WITHDRAWAL 


237 


transcendency  that  the  creation  finds  its  completion,  and  the 
temporary  Dualism  is  forever  transcended.  In  this  experi- 
ence spirit  returns  to  itself,  and  the  finite  individual  life  ia 
perfected  in  God.  This  complete  union  with  God  has  only 
been  realized  once  in  time  in  Jesus  Christ,  and  in  its  realiza- 
tion in  Him  we  have  the  incarnation  and  revelation  of  God 
in  Christ.1 

As  a  formulated  summary  of  my  own  position  on 
the  subject  thus  treated  I  think  this  paragraph  might 
be  allowed  to  stand.  That  it  does  not  dispose  of  all 
difficulties  I  am  quite  aware,  and  that  it  leaves  un- 
touched a  vast  series  of  questions  which  call  for  con- 
sideration is  very  true  also.  But  as  I  am  not  dis- 
cussing but  relating  the  course  of  my  own  mental  and 
spiritual  development  at  a  period  of  crisis  and  transi- 
tion, I  simply  state  the  facts  and  leave  them.  Dr. 
Walker's  book  confirmed  me  in  my  belief  that  a  true 
spiritual  Monism  was  not  inconsistent  with  a  full- 
hearted  acceptance  of  the  Catholic  faith  concerning 
the  person  of  Christ  and  the  incarnation.  It  seems 
obvious  to  me,  though  apparently  not  to  Dr.  Walker 
himself,  that  the  philosophic  standpoint  indicated 
above  implies  the  whole  Catholic  system — but  that  is 
a  matter  I  have  no  right  to  raise  so  far  as  other  people 
are  concerned. 

In  this  same  year,  1911,  though  of  the  precise  date 
I  have  no  recollection,  my  friend  Robert  Hugh  Ben- 
son lent  me  Charles  de  Vas's  thought-provoking  little 
work,  the  Key  to  the  World's  Progress.    With  the 

1  Christian  Theism  and  a  Spiritual  Monism,  pp.  285-6. 


238      A  SPIRITUAL  PILGRIMAGE 


writer's  main  contention,  that  the  test  of  the  perma- 
nence of  a  civilization,  of  its  capacity  to  survive,  of 
its  right  to  be  called  progressive,  was  its  attitude  to 
the  Roman  Catholic  Church,  I  had  no  sympathy.  It 
seemed  to  me  grotesquely  untrue.  But  with  much  else 
that  he  said  I  found  myself  in  close  accord ;  it  rendered 
vivid  what  I  had  been  feeling  in  increasing  measure 
for  a  long  time.  The  book  insisted — if  my  memory  is 
reliable,  as  I  think  it  is;  I  cannot  now  lay  my  hand 
upon  a  copy — that  there  was  really  no  room  for  in- 
dulgence in  an  optimistic  view  of  human  evolution. 
It  pointed  out  that  the  soulless  utilitarianism  and 
mammon-worship  of  our  modern  civilization,  with  its 
glaring  injustices  and  tendency  to  regard  things 
as  making  automatically  towards  betterment,  was 
largely  based  upon  delusion.  We  were  making  a  fetish 
of  progress  without  pausing  to  ask  ourselves  wherein 
it  consisted.  It  affirmed  that  the  history  of  past  civi- 
lizations did  not  encourage  this  too  facile  optimism 
on  our  part.  We  had  no  ground  for  supposing  that 
human  society  on  this  earth  would  ever  by  the  slow 
process  of  evolution  reach  a  static  condition  of  hap- 
piness and  universal  moral  elevation ;  not  in  evolution 
but  in  revolution  (in  the  New  Testament  sense)  was 
still  the  chiefest  hope  of  our  poor  sunken  race. 
These  are  my  own  words  or  my  own  inferences 
from  the  author's  words,  not  those  of  the  author 
himself.  They  chimed  in  with  much  that  Eucken  had 
been  saying  for  many  years  concerning  the  unsatis- 
factoriness  of  modern  ideals  and  the  inability  of  civi- 
lization to  say  for  what  it  was  making.   Most  reluc- 


WITHDRAWAL 


239 


tantly  I  was  forced  to  confess  this  to  be  the  fact  so 
far  as  my  own  observation  of  modern  tendencies  went, 
and  very  terribly  has  that  misgiving  been  vindicated 
by  the  outbreak  of  the  present  war.  In  a  sense  this 
war  is  the  inevitable  outcome  of  the  ideals  whereby 
western  civilization  has  been  living,  shows  what  it 
trusted  in,  and  demonstrates  its  lack  of  spiritual  con- 
sciousness ;  in  another  sense  it  may  mean  the  rectifica- 
tion of  these.    Are  we  being  saved  as  by  fire? 

On  September  27,  1911,  I  preached  the  first  of 
many  sermons  in  which  I  took  this  point  of  view, 
urging  the  inability  of  society  to  save  itself  and  the 
need  of  salvation  from  without — in  a  word  of  all  that 
is  implied  in  the  religion  of  the  Incarnation.  The 
following  paragraphs  indicate  the  line  on  which  I  was 
going. 

A  frequent  subject  of  discussion  among  thoughtful 
people  is  the  question  whether  the  world  is  getting  any 
better. 

Some  say  yes  and  others  say  no.  A  recent  Roman 
Catholic  writer  very  rightly  points  out  that  any  civi- 
lization may  be  advanced  in  one  way  and  retrograde  in 
another.  The  Roman  Empire  under  the  Antonines, 
for  example,  was  prosperous  and  well-governed,  but 
it  had  lost  its  individual  energy  and  public  spirit,  not 
to  speak  of  literary  and  artistic  taste  and  productive- 
ness as  compared  with  the  palmy  days  of  ancient 
Greece.  The  Renaissance  of  the  fifteenth  century  of 
the  Christian  era  was,  as  the  name  implies,  a  great 
outburst  of  human  vigor  and  joy,  a  rebirth  of  interest 


240      A  SPIRITUAL  PILGRIMAGE 

in  the  beauty  and  possibilities  of  this  world;  it  was  a 
period  crammed  with  the  creations  of  men  of  all-round 
genius  like  Michael  Angelo  and  Benvenuto  Cellini; 
great  men  of  letters,  giants  in  politics,  mighty  pioneers 
of  science  and  geographical  discovery  abounded  in 
every  country  of  Christendom ;  it  was  an  unparalleled 
awakening  and  propulsion  of  man's  belief  in  himself 
and  his  destiny.  But  probably  there  never  has  been  a 
period  of  more  extreme  depravity  in  various  ways. 
It  was  the  age  of  poison  and  the  dagger,  of  unex- 
ampled treachery  and  cruelty,  of  unbridled  lust  and 
the  most  cynical  egoism.  A  mere  enumeration  of  the 
enormities  practiced  daily  by  every  government  in 
Europe  at  that  time  is  enough  to  make  one  stop  one's 
ears  in  horror.  Progress,  you  see,  in  one  direction  was 
more  than  counterbalanced  by  reaction  in  another; 
increase  in  refinement,  intellectual  activity,  and  the 
spirit  of  enterprise  did  not  prevent  men  from  behav- 
ing like  devils  to  one  another.  And  there  are  not  a 
few  able  observers  who  are  much  inclined  to  be  doubt- 
ful of  the  value  of  the  prevailing  tendencies  of  the  age 
in  which  we  live.  Rudolf  Eucken,  for  instance,  pro- 
nounces modern  civilization  a  failure  and  prophesies 
doom  for  it  unless  it  can  be  regenerated  by  a  new 
infusion  of  spiritual  power.  We  have  made  enormous 
progress  on  the  material  plane ;  we  have  made  less,  but 
still  a  good  deal  and  are  likely  to  make  more,  on  the 
plane  of  social  well-being;  but  is  our  moral  advance, 
taking  men  not  in  the  lump  but  individually,  com- 
mensurate with  what  we  have  achieved  in  other  ways? 
Frankly,  though  I  am  no  pessimist,  I  do  not  believe 


WITHDRAWAL 


241 


it  is.  During  the  last  nineteen  centuries  have  we 
managed  to  produce  the  moral  superior  of  the  apostle 
Paul  ?  I  need  hardly  ask  whether  anyone  has  yet  suc- 
ceeded in  reaching  the  standard  of  our  Lord  Jesus 
Christ,  but  I  think  I  might  very  reasonably  ask 
whether  either  His  church  or  the  civilization  it  has 
built  has  even  succeeded  in  understanding  Him  up  to 
the  present. 

As  a  corollary  to  the  above  reluctantly  formed  con- 
viction I  had  now  to  give  up  my  semi-Pelagian  view 
of  human  nature.  I  had  to  admit  that  there  was  some- 
thing more  to  be  taken  into  account  than  its  limita- 
tions: there  was  a  factor  of  disorder  somewhere,  a 
principle  of  corruption.  But  I  was  not  prepared,  and 
never  have  been,  to  accept  the  pessimistic  theory  of 
its  depravity  taken  by  Reformation  theology  and  its 
lineal  successors.  Am  I  wide  of  the  mark  in  saying 
that  sin  is  not  so  central  to  Catholic  thought,  not  so 
intractable  and  unrelievedly  dreadful,  and  human 
nature  itself  is  not  regarded  as  being  in  so  hopeless  a 
condition  as  historic  Protestantism  assumes? 

But  the  most  important  influence  that  entered  my 
religious  life  at  this  period  was  the  study  of  Baron  von 
Hugel's  Mystical  Element  of  Religion.  This  is  in  my 
judgment  one  of  the  greatest  books  of  the  twentieth 
century  thus  far,  perhaps  the  very  greatest.  Con- 
joined to  his  masterly  essay  on  Eternal  Life  which 
appeared  some  years  later  it  made  a  profound  and 
lasting  impression  upon  my  mind.  His  analysis  of  the 
intuitional,  intellectual,  and  institutional  factors  of 


242      A  SPIRITUAL  PILGRIMAGE 


our  total  spirit-life,  and  his  showing  of  their  necessary 
correlation,  impressed  me  as  overwhelmingly  true.  I 
saw  for  the  first  time  that  the  exaggeration  of  any  one 
of  them  at  the  expense  of  the  others  had  its  resultant 
mischiefs  in  religion  as  in  all  else,  that  the  balance  be- 
tween them  must  be  maintained  in  order  to  secure  a 
full  all-round  development  of  the  whole  man  and  of 
human  society.  Though  the  author  did  not  expressly 
say  so,  his  exposition  revealed  to  me  conclusively  that 
we  could  no  more  have  Christianity  without  the 
Church  than  we  could  have  life  without  embodiment 
in  such  a  world  as  ours.  The  question,  What  and 
where  is  the  Church  ?  became  imperative.  It  was  not  a 
new  question  to  me  save  in  the  manner  of  its  formula- 
tion. Further,  I  now  recognized  unequivocally  that  it 
was  impossible  to  divide  human  life  up  into  compart- 
ments and  say  that  this  had  spiritual  significance  and 
that  had  not.  Life  in  its  wholeness  must  be  covered, 
interpreted,  and  sanctified  by  religion  or  else  religion 
is  a  failure.  And  just  here  was  where  I  felt  ordinary 
Protestantism  to  be  most  wanting.  In  what  I  have  to 
say  on  the  point  I  am  conscious  of  incurring  the  dan- 
ger of  rousing  antagonism,  so  let  me  emphatically 
disclaim  the  intention  of  belittling  or  misrepresenting 
anyone's  else  form  of  faith.  I  can  but  speak  for  my- 
self when  I  say  that  Protestantism  as  I  knew  it  best 
was  too  subjective.  If  I  may  say  so  without  of- 
fense it  has  always  had  within  it  a  latent  Man- 
ichasan  tendency.  The  outer  world,  the  world  of 
matter  and  the  senses,  has  been  practically  ex- 
cluded from  the  purview  of  religion,  been  set  in 


WITHDRAWAL 


243 


opposition  to  the  world  of  spirit;  interest  has  been 
withdrawn  from  the  former  and  concentrated,  in 
theory  at  least,  upon  the  latter.  What  has  been  the 
result?  That  in  Protestantism  a  practical  dichotomy- 
has  been  effected  of  sacred  and  secular  which  has  had 
a  most  disastrous  influence  upon  the  general  outlook 
of  the  modern  world.  Catholicism  with  all  its  faults, 
and  they  are  many  and  grievous,  has  been  saved  from 
this  by  its  very  fundamental  idea.  How  to  relate 
religion  to  life  in  its  entirety  is  the  problem,  a  prob- 
lem which  I  do  not  think  Protestantism,  broadly 
speaking,  has  solved. 

For  some  time  to  come  I  tried  my  best  to  meet  this 
difficulty  by  preaching  the  sacramentalism  of  all  life — 
a  perfectly  true  thought — but  it  did  not  satisfy  me. 
More  and  more  I  felt  the  need  of  a  spiritual  environ- 
ment wherein  that  idea  was  authoritatively  recognized 
and  expressed.  I  began  to  inquire  earnestly  into  the 
inwardness  of  Roman  doctrine  and  discipline.  I 
wanted  to  see  it  at  work,  to  get  a  grasp,  if  I  could,  of 
its  meaning  and  what  it  could  do  in  the  way  of  train- 
ing, guiding,  and  developing  human  character  and 
experience  in  the  lands  where  it  was  predominant.  To 
this  end  I  visited  Catholic  countries  and  studied  the 
question  on  the  spot.  I  did  not  content  myself  with 
conversing  with  the  cultured  and  highly  placed,  I 
talked  to  the  peasantry  and  the  tradesfolk.  At 
Lourdes  and  among  the  Basques  on  the  Spanish  side 
of  the  Pyrenees  I  found  a  quality  of  present-day 
saintship,  a  simplicity  and  unworldiness,  that  seemed 
to  belong  to  another  age  than  ours.   In  France  I  saw 


244      A  SPIRITUAL  PILGRIMAGE 


the  beginnings  of  religious  revival.  In  Ireland,  espe- 
cially the  south  and  west,  I  found  amongst  all  classes 
a  spiritual  idealism,  a  susceptibility  to  the  unseen 
world  and  things  eternal,  that  I  devoutly  wished  could 
be  recommunicated  to  England  and  English  religion 
generally.  I  saw  many  things  I  did  not  like,  espe- 
cially in  Italy,  where  religion  appeared  to  be  tinged 
with  a  grossness,  irreverence,  and  superstition  which 
rendered  it  most  unattractive.  This  was  more  the  case 
in  the  south  than  in  the  north,  but  it  was  to  be  found 
all  through.  I  kept  up  my  intercourse  with  Roman 
scholars  and  ecclesiastics,  and  read  widely  in  their 
literature,  avoiding  the  propagandist  for  the  most 
part.  On  the  whole  I  think  I  may  say  that  I  came 
through  this  period  of  earnest  inquiry  and  desire  to 
learn  with  an  enhanced  respect  for  the  vitality  of 
Roman  Catholic  religion,  but  not  with  any  greater 
desire  to  associate  myself  therewith.  My  experience 
on  one  important  point  was  almost  the  opposite  of 
that  related  by  Monsignor  Benson  in  his  Confessions 
of  a  Convert.  He  says  that  his  travels  abroad  made 
him  realize  the  provincialism  of  the  Church  of  Eng- 
land, her  comparative  isolation  and  impotence.  On 
the  contrary  I  realized  her  venerableness,  dignity,  and 
strength.  Roman  Catholic  devotions,  especially  in 
Latin  countries,  are  to  a  great  extent  too  extravagant 
and  unrestrained  for  me,  and  they  have  no  more  of  the 
impressiveness  of  antiquity  than  those  of  the  com- 
munion to  which  I  now  belong,  the  historic  Church  of 
my  own  dear  land.  I  fully  agree  with  Lord  Hugh 
Cecil  that  nationalism  in  religion  has  produced  many 


WITHDRAWAL 


245 


evils,  the  present  war  perhaps  among  them,  but  I  do 
not  feel  that  in  this  respect  we  are  any  worse  off  than 
other  countries.  The  spirit  of  English  churchmanship 
is  no  more  un-Catholic  than  that  of  Germany  or  even 
Spain.  I  came  back  from  all  my  tours  fully  convinced 
that  Rome  could  not  give  us  anything  which  the 
Church  of  England  did  not  possess  in  equal  measure 
with  the  additional  advantage  of  a  liberty  and  com- 
prehensiveness foreign  to  the  "genius  of  the  larger  com- 
munion. In  England  the  power  and  significance  that 
come  of  age  and  long  unbroken  continuity  are  on  the 
side  of  Anglicanism,  not  Romanism.  The  latter  is  a 
modern  importation  and  has  a  distinctly  foreign  flavor 
about  it.  The  Church  of  Augustine  and  Colman  is 
the  same  Church  without  a  break  in  which  I  minister 
today.  Her  historic  dioceses  are  the  same,  cotermi- 
nous with  the  ancient  Anglo-Saxon  kingdoms,  with  a 
succession  of  prelates  reaching  back  without  interrup- 
tion to  Wilfrid,  Chad,  and  Aidan.  Her  very  build- 
ings in  no  small  degree  are  the  epitome  of  her  story. 
There  stand  the  ancient  fanes  erected  by  the  pious 
hands  of  our  pre-Reformation  fathers  to  the  glory  of 
God;  therein  stood  the  altars  at  which  they  wor- 
shiped ;  without  are  the  churchyards  in  which  they  lie. 
If  we  are  to  look  for  Catholicity  let  us  begin  at  home; 
we  need  not  wander  far  afield. 

By  the  middle  of  1914  at  the  furthest  all  this  was 
clear  to  me,  and  it  was  only  a  matter  of  time  before  I 
should  feel  free  to  act  upon  it.  I  felt  that,  as  Bishop 
Gore  says,  the  Church  of  England  had  a  special  mis- 
sion in  the  world,  that  of  witnessing  for  a  liberal 


246      A  SPIRITUAL  PILGRIMAGE 

Catholicism.1  My  affinities  were  with  that,  and  I 
knew  it.  That,  despite  all  its  exaggerations  and  in- 
coherences, was  what  the  new  theology  movement 
consciously  or  unconsciously  had  been  seeking.  There 
could  be  no  returning  to  Protestant  individualism ;  in 
the  corporate  unity  of  the  Catholic  Church,  and  that 
alone,  was  full  satisfaction  to  be  found  for  my  re- 
ligious needs.  One  had  to  get  into  the  main  stream 
of  Christian  history  if  that  were  possible. 

The  great  outstanding  difficulty  was  my  charge  at 
the  City  Temple.  I  never  had  the  slightest  doubt  in 
my  mind  as  to  the  reality  of  the  divine  call  to  me  to 
minister  there.  Only  one  thing  could  release  me 
from  that,  and  that  would  be  an  equally  clear  ex- 
pression of  the  will  of  God  that  I  should  go  else- 
where. I  felt  sure  such  would  be  forthcoming  if  I 
were  to  make  any  change,  so  I  waited  calmly  and 
with  no  distress  of  mind;  I  felt  that  I  knew  what 
was  coming,  but  I  did  not  feel  that  I  ought  to  do 
anything  myself  to  hasten  it.  When  I  came  home 
from  America  early  in  1912  I  had  been  examined 
by  two  medical  specialists  and  found  to  be  suffer- 
ing from  an  overstrained  heart  and  nervous  sys- 
tem. It  was  thought  best  that  I  should  retire  from 
the  pulpit  for  a  time  or  at  least  limit  my  activities  very 
drastically.  I  put  myself  in  the  hands  of  the  office- 
bearers with  regard  to  the  matter,  and  from  that  day 
forward  took  no  public  engagements  outside  my  own 
church  and  was  relieved  of  all  detail  of  administration 
within  it.  In  July,  1914,  just  before  my  summer  holi- 

1  Orders  and  Unity,  Introduction  iv,  et  pp.  199-205. 


WITHDRAWAL 


247 


day  was  due,  I  had  a  sudden  breakdown  followed  by  a 
sharp  illness.  Once  more  the  medical  verdict  was  un- 
favorable, and  when  I  was  convalescent  I  wrote  to 
the  office-bearers  to  say  so  and  to  tell  them  plainly  that 
I  thought  I  had  better  resign.  This  they  would  not 
hear  of,  and  offered  to  get  me  any  assistance  in  their 
power  for  a  time  and  see  what  that  would  do.  Then 
the  war  broke  out,  and  in  consequence  I  came  back  to 
my  duties  before  I  had  fully  recovered.  I  did  not  find 
occasional  assistance  to  be  of  much  use.  The  congre- 
gation was  drawn  from  such  immense  distances  that 
the  majority  of  those  composing  it  could  not  be  in- 
duced to  make  a  long  journey  down  to  the  city  to 
hear  preachers  whom  they  did  not  know.  In  the  early 
spring  following  I  gave  up  preaching  twice  on  Sun- 
days, and  Dr.  Black  of  New  York  shortly  afterwards 
came  over  and  acted  as  my  colleague  for  two  months. 
There  was  a  proposal  that  this  arrangement  should 
be  made  a  permanency,  and  no  man  could  have  desired 
a  more  delightful  colleague  than  Dr.  Black,  but  in 
the  end  for  various  reasons  he  felt  obliged  to  decline. 

Six  months  earlier,  about  the  4th  of  January  I 
believe,  I  had  opened  my  heart  to  the  Bishop  of  Lon- 
don and  told  him  just  how  I  was  situated,  and  that  I 
thought  of  returning  to  communion  in  the  Church  of 
England  if  ultimately  I  should  be  set  free  to  do  so. 
The  idea  was  not  new  to  him.  We  had  discussed  it 
long  before  in  an  abstract  fashion.  He  knew  my  lean- 
ings in  religious  matters,  as  he  always  had  my  con- 
fidence. As  far  back  as  fourteen  years  ago  he  once 
asked  me  what  I  missed  most  in  Nonconformity  as 


248      A  SPIRITUAL  PILGRIMAGE 


compared  with  the  Church  of  England,  and  I  replied 
"The  altar."  He  never  forgot  this  remark,  and  re- 
curred to  it  again  and  again  in  conversation  in  after 
years.  He  recalled  it  once  more  on  the  occasion  speci- 
fied, and  asked  if  that  had  at  last  become  the  deter- 
mining factor  in  my  thought  about  the  momentous 
question  now  before  me.  I  told  him  it  was.  Little 
more  was  done  for  some  time:  I  simply  let  matters 
develop  without  attempting  to  influence  them;  I 
wanted  to  follow  God's  way,  not  my  own.  One  thing 
I  did  myself  of  a  definite  character.  For  a  long 
time  I  had  had  thoughts  of  rewriting  my  book,  The 
New  Theology,  keeping  to  the  same  sequence  of  sub- 
jects, but  correcting  all  the  points  in  which  it  was  at 
variance  with  the  Catholic  truth.  The  name,  how- 
ever, made  this  impossible.  I  had  a  great  dislike  to  it ; 
it  never  was  my  own  choice;  and  to  rewrite  the  book 
without  retaining  the  name  would  have  been  to  pro- 
duce a  wholly  different  book.  I  thought  I  might  do 
that,  but  the  time  was  not  opportune.  I  now  decided 
to  withdraw  the  book  and  purchase  the  publishing 
rights  to  prevent  its  possible  re-issue.  This  I  did  in 
March,  1915. 

About  the  same  time  an  approach  was  made  to  me 
from  a  prominent  publishing  firm  to  undertake  a 
work  suitable  for  the  general  reader,  giving  a  not  too 
recondite  account  of  the  phases  through  which  modern 
criticism  had  passed  in  regard  to  the  person  of  our 
Lord  and  His  earthly  ministry,  and  making  some  at- 
tempt to  sum  up  results  and  present  a  reverent  study 
of  the  life  of  lives.    I  hesitated  considerably,  chiefly 


WITHDRAWAL 


249 


because  of  the  difficulty  of  the  commission.  One 
might  have  ventured  upon  a  survey  of  the  critical 
field  in  regard  to  the  subject;  but  with  so  many  un- 
solved problems  staring  one  in  the  face,  upon  which 
as  yet  New  Testament  scholarship  is  far  from  having 
said  its  last  word,  I  did  not  greatly  relish  the  idea  of 
doing  anything  further.  Criticism  was  one  thing,  and 
the  devout  presentation  of  a  consistent  story  of  our 
Lord's  sayings  and  doings  in  the  days  of  His  flesh  was 
another.  There  had  been  too  many  failures  in  that 
field  to  make  me  very  willing  to  risk  adding  to  them. 
I  agreed  that  the  work  needed  to  be  done,  and  referred 
the  proposal  elsewhere.  I  mentioned  one  or  two 
others  as  fitter  to  undertake  the  task  than  I,  and  I 
believe  the  suggestion  was  put  before  them  and  de- 
clined. Ultimately  it  came  back  to  me,  and  finally 
in  the  month  of  June  I  consented  to  do  what  I  could 
with  it  if  plenty  of  time  were  given.  By  now  I  had 
practically  decided  to  withdraw  from  my  position  in 
Nonconformity.  I  thought  I  might  go  on  till  after 
the  war  and  then  return  to  lay  communion  in  the 
Church  of  England.  Much  to  the  surprise  of  the 
representative  of  the  firm  in  question,  I  observed  as 
I  laid  down  the  pen  after  signing  the  agreement,  that 
this  meant  the  end  of  my  City  Temple  ministry. 
"Why?"  he  inquired.  "Because,"  was  my  reply,  "I 
would  not  think  of  undertaking  serious  literary  work 
such  as  this  would  involve  if  I  were  not  contemplating 
retirement  from  the  pulpit."  I  then  explained  how 
matters  really  stood,  and  that  the  decision  just 
taken  was  only  part  of  a  much  larger  question.  A 


250      A  SPIRITUAL  PILGRIMAGE 


few  days  afterwards  this  gentleman  happened  to  be 
staying  with  the  Bishop  of  Birmingham,1  and  with- 
out my  knowledge  spoke  of  the  matter  to  him  as  a 
fact  of  some  interest  from  the  Church  standpoint. 
He  did  not  mention  my  name,  but  the  Bishop  has 
since  told  me  that  he  immediately  guessed  it,  having 
himself  prophesied  publicly  some  years  before  that 
this  would  be  the  course  that  I  must  ultimately  take. 
He  had  frequently  heard  me  preach,  though  I  was 
unaware  of  it,  and  knew  my  mind  very  well.  He  sug- 
gested to  his  interviewer  that  if  I  had  no  objection  to 
disclosing  my  identity  he  would  be  glad  to  invite  me 
to  come  and  stay  with  him  and  discuss  the  situation. 
I  gave  the  required  permission,  and  the  invitation 
reached  me  just  as  I  was  starting  for  my  summer  holi- 
day, the  former  part  of  which  I  intended  to  spend 
with  the  troops  in  France.  I  traveled  down  to  Bir- 
mingham and  saw  the  Bishop.  He  went  straight  to 
the  point  in  his  usual  business-like  way,  and  in  a  very 
few  minutes  had  outlined  the  arrangements  which 
have  since  been  carried  out.  He  inquired  about  the 
New  Theology,  and  I  told  him  that  the  book  had  been 
withdrawn  months  before.  He  expressed  satisfaction 
at  this,  and  I  told  him  in  brief  what  is  set  down  in 
these  pages  of  the  doctrinal  and  ecclesiastical  position 
to  which  I  had  come  and  why.  I  asked  to  be  allowed 
to  think  over  his  generous  tentative  suggestions  dur- 
ing my  absence  in  France.  I  revealed  to  him  frankly 
my  difficulty  about  the  City  Temple,  especially  in 

1  Dr.  Russell  Wakefield.  Dr.  Gore  had  been  translated  to 
Oxford  in  1911. 


WITHDRAWAL 


251 


view  of  the  war  and  the  new  needs  to  which  the  war 
had  given  rise,  and  he  was  large-hearted  enough  to 
understand  it  fully. 

Early  in  the  following  September  after  my  return 
from  France  we  met  in  London  by  appointment.  My 
mind  was  made  up.  I  felt  that  I  could  not  con- 
sistently remain  where  I  was,  and  that  the  logic  of 
events  had  freed  me  from  any  moral  obligation  to 
do  so.  The  failure  of  my  health  and  the  impossi- 
bility of  making  satisfactory  permanent  arrange- 
ments for  lightening  my  work  at  the  City  Temple 
had  made  that  clear.  I  intimated  to  the  Bishop  that 
I  should  be  glad  of  a  long  rest  and  was  in  much 
need  of  it  after  an  exacting  ministry  of  twenty1 
years'  duration,  and  that  probably  the  transition 
from  Nonconformity  to  the  Church  of  England 
could  be  more  easily  made  after  a  period  of  lay  com- 
munion. He  agreed  to  this  in  the  abstract,  but  de- 
murred to  it  in  this  instance  on  two  grounds:  first, 
that  if  there  were  any  doubt  of  my  vocation  I  might 
need  time  to  go  into  the  wilderness  and  consider  my 
future  course.  But  there  was  none;  God  had  mani- 
festly made  me  a  preacher,  and  it  was  my  duty  to 
preach.  Secondly,  the  present  was  an  unexampled 
time  of  national  need,  a  time  of  universal  suffering 
and  strain,  and  any  man  who  could  do  anything  to 
comfort  and  help  his  fellows  was  called  upon  to  do 
it.  I  thought  these  considerations  wise  and  good; 
I  think  so  still.1    I  sent  my  resignation  to  the  office- 

1  Since  the  above  paragraph  was  written  I  have  received  a 
letter  from  the  Bishop  in  which  he  says:  "I  should  be  glad  if 


252      A  SPIRITUAL  PILGRIMAGE 


bearers  immediately.  A  meeting  of  the  church 
members  was  held  shortly  afterwards  at  which  my  de- 
cision was  communicated  together  with  the  announce- 
ment of  my  intention  to  seek  orders  in  the  Church  of 
England.  Very  beautifully  and  tenderly  was  the 
news  received  by  my  beloved  people.  On  October  10 
I  preached  my  last  sermon  in  the  City  Temple,  and 
walked  out  of  the  pulpit  feeling  like  a  man  in  a  dream. 
The  crisis  was  over;  I  was  beginning  life  anew  in  my 
forty-ninth  year  at  the  very  point  where  I  had  left  off 
in  Oxford  nearly  a  generation  earlier. 

you  would  state  somewhere  in  the  book  you  have  undertaken  to 
write,  that  personal  affection  for  yourself  was  a  leading  factor 
in  my  taking  your  case  up  so  strongly.  We  had  not  often  met, 
but  I  was  drawn  to  you,  and  our  Christian  social  sympathies 
were  very  real  also." 


CHAPTER  XI 


REORDINATION 

It  should  be  clearly  understood  by  those  who  read 
these  words  that  nothing  in  the  nature  of  a  bargain 
was  entered  into  on  either  side  in  the  short  and  simple 
negotiations  which  took  place  before  I  entered  the 
Church  of  England.  This  statement  may  be  deemed 
unnecessary,  but  from  hints  which  have  reached  me 
from  various  quarters  I  judge  it  well  to  make  it. 
There  were  no  quasi-simoniacal  transactions.  No 
prospects  of  advancement  were  held  out  to  me,  nor 
did  I  ask  for  any.  I  took  up  my  new  ministry  on  the 
same  terms  as  any  newly  ordained  clergyman.  The 
Bishop  of  Birmingham  did,  indeed,  suggest  at  our 
first  interview,  subject  to  the  consent  of  Bishop  Ham- 
ilton Baynes,  that  I  should  be  attached  to  the  cathe- 
dral pulpit  and  excused  from  parochial  work,  but 
this  was,  as  he  said,  that  my  special  gifts  might  be 
most  usefully  employed.  My  own  previously  ex- 
pressed wish  had  been  to  work  with  my  old  and  dear 
friend  Canon  Adderley,  which  I  should  have  been  very 
happy  to  do.  But  the  Bishop's  idea  was  the  best  and 
wisest.  Bishop  Hamilton  Baynes,  the  cathedral 
rector,  readily  fell  in  with  it,  and  I  have  every  reason 
to  rejoice  that  he  did  so.  He  has  been  most  kind  and 

253 


254      A  SPIRITUAL  PILGRIMAGE 


considerate  all  through,  and  one  could  not  be  more 
fortunately  placed  than  to  be  associated  with  him  and 
the  other  members  of  the  cathedral  staff. 

But  this  is  anticipating,  and  I  must  keep  to  the 
strict  sequence  of  events.  If  there  be  any  who  think 
I  ought  not  to  have  considered  the  City  Temple  at  all, 
or  contemplated  remaining  there  for  a  moment  after 
arriving  at  the  spiritual  position  above  recorded,  I  can 
but  say  firmly  that  I  differ  from  them.  A  trust  like 
that  is  not  to  be  lightly  relinquished.  The  City 
Temple  is  a  preaching  station  with  a  vast  personal 
congregation,  a  congregation  coming  to  be  taught  by 
one  particular  man.  I  had  absolute  freedom  in  the 
pulpit;  I  could  preach  what  I  thought  fit  and  had 
none  to  say  me  nay.  As  a  matter  of  fact,  my  Catholic 
tendencies  were  quite  well  known  to  those  who  habit- 
ually attended  upon  my  ministry.  If  my  health  had 
stood  the  strain  I  do  not  see  how  I  legitimately,  in  all 
reason  and  conscience,  could  have  flung  over  the  heavy 
responsibility  this  involved,  nor  would  I  have  done 
so.  If  there  are  those  who  condemn  this  avowal  I 
am  sorry  but  I  believe  I  was  right.  It  was  not  a 
question  of  choosing  between  heathenism  and  Chris- 
tianity. The  people  to  whom  I  ministered  Sunday  by 
Sunday  were  good  Christians,  a  very  large  proportion 
of  them  Anglicans,  and  more  and  more  I  could  have 
used  the  central  position  thus  given  to  me  in  the  direc- 
tion of  encouraging  the  movement  towards  reunion 
which  has  begun  to  make  itself  felt  in  recent  years. 
That  alone  would  have  justified  me  in  remaining 
where  I  was,  and  I  took  it  very  seriously  into  consid- 


REORDINATION 


255 


eration.  That  I  did  not  remain  was  not  my  own 
doing;  it  was  God's  will  unmistakably  revealed 
through  force  of  circumstances. 

On  October  14,  1915,  I  fulfilled  a  long-standing 
engagement  to  preach  for  Dr.  Jones  at  Bournemouth. 
This  was  my  last  sermon  as  a  Nonconformist  minister. 
The  next  day  I  motored  over  to  Oxford  to  stay  with 
Bishop  Gore,  and  the  following  morning,  in  his  pri- 
vate chapel,  was  received  once  more  as  a  communicant 
of  the  Anglican  Church.  This  bare  recital  of  the  facts 
gives  but  a  poor  idea  of  the  deep  feeling  and  reverent 
thankfulness  with  which  I  knelt  at  the  altar  to  receive 
the  holy  sacrament  from  the  hands  of  one  to  whom  I 
owed  so  much  and  who  was  associated  with  so  many 
things  dear  and  memorable  to  me  in  the  past.  I  will 
say  no  more. 

Returning  from  Oxford,  I  went  straight  to  France 
for  two  months'  work  with  the  army  in  the  field.  I  did 
this  partly  because  I  wanted  to  take  my  small  share 
with  our  brave  soldiers  in  what  they  were  going 
through  and  partly  in  order  to  escape  interviewers. 
Pressmen  were  very  persistent  in  England,  as  was  to 
be  expected,  over  the  question  of  reordination,  and  I 
was  determined  to  avoid  all  occasion  of  strife.  I 
thought  it  best  to  say  nothing,  even  at  the  cost  of  being 
misunderstood  and  misrepresented.  The  following 
document,  however,  which  was  never  published,  may 
be  of  some  interest  in  this  connection.  The  editors  of 
several  Church  newspapers  had  very  courteously 
placed  their  columns  at  my  disposal  if  I  wished  to 
make  a  statement  to  Anglicans  at  large.   I  told  them 


256      A  SPIRITUAL  PILGRIMAGE 


I  did  not  wish  to  make  any  statement.  One  of  them, 
in  conversation  with  the  Bishop  of  Birmingham  a 
little  later,  understood  him  to  say  that  a  short  state- 
ment of  some  sort  was  desirable,  and  in  deference 
to  this  opinion  I  drew  one  up  and  took  it  with  me  to 
Oxford  and  submitted  it  to  Dr.  Gore  for  criticism. 
He  approved  it  just  as  it  stood,  but  agreed  with  me 
that  its  publication  at  the  moment  might  be  provoca- 
tive of  controversy,  and  that  it  would  be  best  to  adhere 
to  my  policy  of  silence.  I  afterwards  found  that,  on 
the  whole,  the  Bishop  of  Birmingham  agreed  with  this 
view,  so  I  did  not  issue  the  statement.  It  can  fitly  be 
inserted  here  as  summing  up  what  I  thought  and  felt 
in  the  hour  of  taking  leave  of  Nonconformity. 

The  editor  of  has  been  good  enough  to 

invite  me  to  make  a  brief  statement  in  his  columns  con- 
cerning my  present  position  and  intentions  in  view 
of  the  various  unauthorized  paragraphs  on  the  subject 
which  have  appeared  in  the  press  of  late.  I  accede  to 
this  suggestion  in  the  hope  that  it  may  render  future 
and  fuller  explanations  unnecessary,  and  I  earnestly 
ask  to  be  spared  discussion  and  comment.  In  this 
hour  of  national  trial  and  danger  it  is  surely  desirable 
to  allow  personal  matters  to  sink  out  of  sight;  even 
the  most  important  of  them  are  trivial  indeed  in  con- 
trast with  the  mighty  issues  at  stake  on  the  battlefields 
of  Europe. 

I  am  returning  to  communion  in  the  Church  of 
England  after  a  long  interval  spent  in  the  Noncon- 
formist ministry.    This  is  no  sudden  resolve,  but  a 


REOIiDINATION 


257 


decision  arrived  at  after  protracted  and  earnest  con- 
sideration. In  taking  this  step  I  do  not  feel  that  I  am 
exchanging  a  false  religion  for  a  true,  but  a  less  per- 
fect for  a  more  perfect  system  of  belief  and  worship. 
I  know  Nonconformists  too  well,  and  respect  them 
too  much,  ever  to  speak  slightingly  of  the  spiritual 
witness  they  have  borne  for  so  many  generations  in 
the  English-speaking  world,  and  I  long  for  the  day 
when  they  shall  be  reunited  with  the  mother  Church 
in  corporate  fellowship.  Perhaps  that  day  is  not  so 
far  distant  as  at  present  appears,  and  it  shall  be  my 
constant  endeavor  in  the  future,  as  it  has  been  in  the 
past,  to  promote  as  far  as  I  can  the  growth  of  that 
better  understanding  between  the  Established  Church 
and  evangelical  Nonconformist  bodies  which,  thank 
God,  is  already  and  increasingly  manifest.  I  expect 
to  continue  to  maintain  friendly  relations  with  the 
fellow-Christians  with  whom  I  have  been  associated 
for  so  many  years.  This  is  specially  the  case  with 
the  congregation  of  the  City  Temple.  It  is  with  a  sad 
heart  that  I  have  parted  from  a  people  so  loyal  and 
generous  and  from  whom  as  their  minister  I  have 
never  received  anything  but  kindness  and  affection. 
I  freely  confess  that  had  I  been  physically  equal  to 
the  continued  strain  of  my  work  at  the  City  Temple 
my  task  today  would  have  been  much  harder  than  it 
is.  I  have  not  taken  much  part  in  the  general  aff  airs 
of  organized  Nonconformity,  my  ties  with  it  are  few 
and  slight ;  but  those  with  the  City  Temple  are  many 
and  strong.  Conviction  and  vocation  are  not  neces- 
sarily quite  the  same  thing,  and  I  am  as  sure  today  as 


258      A  SPIRITUAL  PILGRIMAGE 


I  ever  was  that  it  has  been  my  vocation  to  preach  in 
the  City  Temple  pulpit ;  it  is  otherwise  now.  Perhaps 
on  this  point  I  may  be  permitted  to  quote  an  extract 
from  a  statement  already  made  by  me  to  the  City 
Temple  Church  members: 

You  observe,  no  doubt,  that  I  have  said  nothing  in  the 
letter  to  the  church  secretary  as  to  my  reasons  for  feeling 
that  the  Church  of  England  is  my  spiritual  home.  Most 
of  my  friends  know  all  about  them  already,  and  I  earnestly 
desire  to  avoid  giving  any  occasion  for  public  controversy. 
No  statement  that  one  could  make  on  this  point  would  be 
free  from  that  danger,  and  I  therefore  ask  to  be  allowed 
to  remain  silent.  In  this  time  of  national  suffering  it  surely 
behooves  all  Christians  to  cultivate  sympathy  and  brotherly 
kindness,  to  draw  near  to  one  another,  not  to  hold  apart. 
Let  me  emphasize  this,  however.  As  long  as  I  was  able  to 
do  the  work  necessarily  required  of  the  minister  of  this 
great  church  I  have  felt  morally  bound  to  remain  at  my  post ; 
I  did  not  feel  free  to  choose  any  other.  But  as  by  the  mani- 
fest will  of  God  I  am  no  longer  equal  to  the  work  thus 
involved,  I  feel  that  that  vocation  is  at  an  end  and  another 
sounds  in  my  ears ;  I  am  free  to  go  where  my  heart  leads. 
After  the  City  Temple  no  other  Nonconformist  pulpit  has 
any  attraction  for  me ;  no  other  church  is  possible  to  me 
as  a  future  sphere  of  labor  than  that  to  which  I  go. 

I  beg  to  be  allowed  to  go  quietly.  I  need  and  long  for  a 
period  of  retirement  and  bodily  and  mental  rest,  and  this  I 
hope  to  secure  after  my  return  from  France. 

It  is  requisite,  nevertheless,  that  a  word  should  be 
said  here  in  regard  to  my  attitude  to  the  Church  I  am 
reentering.   I  have  always  loved  the  Church  of  Eng- 


REORDXNATION 


259 


land — her  historic  continuity,  dignity,  comprehensive- 
ness, worship  and  discipline.  Within  her  borders  I 
received  the  greatest  spiritual  impulse  of  my  life  a 
generation  ago,  the  effect  of  which  has  never  passed 
away.  She  stands  unrivaled  in  Christendom  for  her 
combination  of  intellectual  freedom  with  Catholic 
tradition;  she  has  all  the  advantages  and  few  of  the 
disadvantages  of  a  more  rigid  ecclesiastical  authority. 
Sectarianism  is  deplorable ;  it  cannot  be  in  accordance 
with  the  mind  of  our  Lord.  No  new  Church  was 
created  at  the  Reformation  settlement ;  the  Church  of 
today  is  the  Church  of  Augustine  and  Augustine's 
predecessors  in  this  island  home  of  ours ;  and  the  first 
step  towards  a  reunited  Christendom,  so  far  as  our 
own  country  is  concerned,  is  the  gathering  into  the 
one  ancient  fold  of  all  the  diverse  elements,  so  many 
of  them  rich  and  admirable,  which  together  constitute 
the  religious  life  of  England  at  the  present  time.  To 
this  long-prayed-for  end  large  concessions  are  well 
worth  the  making  from  every  side. 

To  me  personally,  I  have  to  admit,  more  is  at  stake 
than  even  this.  The  whole  system  of  the  Church 
hangs  together — doctrine,  practice,  institutions — 
despite  all  her  illogicalities  and  imperfections.  The 
Incarnation,  the  Atonement,  the  extension  of  both  in 
the  sacraments,  the  ministry  which  guards  them,  and 
the  visible  society  itself  as  the  sphere  of  sacramental 
grace — all  these  seem  to  me  to  imply  each  other.  I 
have  often  testified  in  years  gone  by  that  if  my  mind 
ever  moved  towards  a  more  conservative  position  in 
reference  to  traditional  Christianity  it  could  not  be 


2G0      A  SPIRITUAL  PILGRIMAGE 

content  with  the  Nonconformist  standpoint.  That  is 
exactly  what  has  taken  place.  I  cannot  rest  in  re- 
ligious individualism,  and  everything  short  of  full 
communion  with  the  Church  of  all  the  Christian  cen- 
turies is  religious  individualism.  It  would  still  be 
true  to  describe  me  as  a  religious  liberal,  but  I  am 
a  liberal  with  a  Catholic  outlook,  and  my  liberalism 
has  had  to  be  greatly  modified  within  the  past  few 
years.  Immanentism  is  inadequate  as  an  explanation 
of  the  Christian  facts,  and  pressed  too  far  is  erroneous. 
The  controversy  which  broke  out  concerning  my  views 
nine  years  ago  called  forth  from  me  a  hasty  and  pre- 
mature reply  in  a  book  called  The  New  Theology. 
In  so  far  as  the  views  therein  expressed  were  in  con- 
flict with  generally  accepted  Christian  doctrine  I  have 
withdrawn  them,  and  I  do  not  think  any  moderate 
churchman  would  be  disposed  to  find  fault  from  the 
doctrinal  standpoint  with  my  pulpit  utterances  for 
the  last  five  or  six  years. 

This  is  all  I  care  to  say  at  present,  except  to  beg 
the  sympathy,  forbearance,  and  Christian  charity  of 
all  with  whom  I  have  to  do. 

My  work  among  the  soldiers,  especially  the 
wounded  and  dying,  during  my  stay  in  France,  drove 
every  merely  personal  consideration  out  of  my  head. 
I  could  think  of  nothing  but  the  pain  and  death 
around  me,  and  the  awful  pit  of  hell  into  which  our 
boasted  civilization  had  been  hurled.  I  learned  some 
things  likewise  about  the  weaknesses  and  failures  of 
our  national  religion  which  are  better  discussed  else- 


REORDINATION 


2C1 


where  than  in  these  pages,  and  it  was  impossible  to 
be  thrown  day  after  day  into  the  company  of  chap- 
lains and  Christian  workers  of  all  denominations  with- 
out feeling  that  our  common  Christianity  is  indeed  a 
real  and  most  blessed  fact  for  which  to  be  profoundly 
thankful.  In  presence  of  such  a  cataclysm  as  the  war, 
how  comparatively  trivial  our  disagreements  appear! 
I  came  back  from  that  experience  more  than  ever  con- 
vinced that  the  question  of  the  reunion  of  Christendom 
is  one  of  urgency,  not  mere  expediency,  and  that 
its  indefinite  postponement  is  inflicting  grievous  harm 
upon  human  society.  Who  can  say  how  much  of  the 
international  antagonisms  and  secularity  of  aim  from 
which  we  are  all  suffering  must  be  attributed  to  the 
divided  state  of  Christendom? 

I  spent  Christmas  in  Birmingham,  whither  my 
home  had  been  removed  in  my  absence.  A  few  weeks 
of  retreat  and  necessary  rest  followed — far  less  than 
I  could  have  desired — and  I  was  ordained  deacon  on 
St.  Matthias'  Day,  February  24.  Priest's  orders  I 
received  on  the  Trinity  Sunday  following.  The 
preacher  on  the  former  of  these  two  occasions  was 
Canon  Adderley — the  delicate  kindness  of  this  choice 
on  the  part  of  the  Bishop  I  was  not  slow  to  perceive. 
Towards  the  close  of  the  sermon  the  preacher  ad- 
dressed himself  directly  to  me  in  the  following  terms : 

Dear  brother,  whom  it  has  been  my  privilege  to  know  and 
love  for  many  years,  you  have  an  advantage  over  many 
of  us  in  that  God  the  Holy  Spirit  has  so  clearly  shown  you 
that  He  is  with  you  and  is  calling  you,  long  before  you 


2G2      A  SPIRITUAL  PILGRIMAGE 


were  called  upon  to  answer  the  question  in  the  Ordination 
Service.  To  deny  the  work  of  the  Holy  Spirit  in  your 
former  ministry  would,  for  me,  at  least,  be  to  risk  the  com- 
mission of  the  unpardonable  sin.  Nevertheless,  the  step  you 
are  taking  today  is  a  very  real  step  onward  in  loyal  mem- 
bership of  the  Church  in  which  you  were  christened  and 
confirmed.  It  is  in  no  spirit  of  flattery  (nothing  would  be 
more  out  of  place  at  such  a  time)  that  I  say  that  we  wel- 
come you  to  fellowship  in  the  Anglican  ministry.  You  join 
us  at  a  time  which  I  have  already  described  as  critical ; 
a  time  which  is  critical  not,  thank  God,  in  the  direction  of 
alarm  so  much  as  in  that  of  hope.  Old  controversies  be- 
tween Christians  are  ceasing  to  savor  of  reality,  different 
denominations  are  able  to  learn  from  one  another  in  a  way 
that  was  impossible  not  so  many  years  ago ;  the  three  great 
divisions  of  Christendom  are  allied  together  in  a  common 
warfare;  here  at  home  the  descendants  of  those  who  were 
most  bitterly  opposed  to  each  other  are  longing  to  walk 
in  the  House  of  God  as  friends ;  old  battle-cries  in  the  re- 
ligious world  no  longer  move  devout,  converted  Christians 
to  quarrel,  but  rather  the  very  spears  have  become  pruning- 
hooks  with  which  we  try  to  cultivate  all  kinds  of  flowers  that 
may  grow  together  in  one  garden  of  the  Lord.  We  are 
learning  lessons  of  how  to  worship,  how  to  pray,  how  to 
meditate  and  to  keep  silence,  what  conversion  is,  what  grace 
is.  The  common  love  of  Jesus  is  making  us  one  in  united  ef- 
fort heavenwards.  Outside  the  immediate  circle  of  the 
Church  the  old  quarrel  between  religion  and  science  has 
almost  ceased,  while  the  philosophers  are  from  every  quarter 
making  suggestions  which  are  enriching  Christian  thought. 

May  God  the  Holy  Spirit  confirm  in  you  those  graces 
which  will  most  help  us  at  this  time  to  the  glory  of  God. 
Together  may  we  be  witnesses  of  the  Resurrection  of  the 


REORDINATION  2C3 


Lord,  showing  men  by  our  lives  that  the  Christ  still  lives: 
the  wisdom  of  God  guiding  men  as  individuals,  as  churches, 
and  as  nations ;  the  Savior  bringing  pardon  and  peace  to 
weary  souls  and  weary  fighters  in  a  noble  cause;  the  King 
of  kings  and  Lord  of  lords  sitting  above  the  waterflood: 
the  Son  of  Man  going  about  doing  good ;  the  Lamb  of 
God  adored  in  heaven  by  saints  and  angels,  and  by  His 
children  on  earth  in  every  Eucharist ;  the  Good  Shepherd 
feeding  His  sheep  at  every  altar.  Together  may  we  once 
more  open  the  eyes  of  English  men  and  women  to  see  the 
other  world,  the  only  great  reality  in  the  midst  of  the  shams 
and  hypocrisies  of  modern  life.  Together  may  we  do  our 
little  bit  to  make  the  kingdoms  of  this  world  into  the  King- 
doms of  our  Lord  and  of  His  Christ. 

These  significant  and  generous  words  have  not  at- 
tracted from  Nonconformists  the  amount  of  attention 
that  might  have  been  expected.  I  am  not  aware  that 
they  have  been  quoted  to  any  large  extent  in  the  Non- 
conformist religious  press,  though  in  this  I  speak 
subject  to  correction.  On  the  other  hand,  they  were 
reproduced  in  the  Church  Times  and  several  other 
Anglican  publications.  The  definite  and  outspoken 
recognition  which  they  give  to  the  fact  that  the  divine 
blessing  does  attend  Nonconformist  ministrations  is  a 
notable  admission,  especially  when  it  is  remembered 
that  the  speaker  himself  has  always  been  a  strong  and 
pronounced  Anglo-Catholic.  No  one  in  Anglican 
circles,  so  far  as  I  know,  has  since  taken  any  objection 
to  them.  To  couple  the  thought  of  denying  the  reality 
of  my  earlier  ministry  with  that  of  committing  the  sin 
against  the  Holy  Ghost  is  indeed  an  emphatic  repudi- 


264      A  SPIRITUAL  PILGRIMAGE 


ation  of  all  desire  to  belittle  the  spiritual  worth  of 
Nonconformity  and  its  witness  in  the  world — and  this, 
be  it  observed,  in  the  very  act  of  the  reordination  of 
an  ex-Nonconformist  minister. 

The  question  of  my  reordination  gave  me  no 
qualms.  No  more  than  Canon  Adderley  did  I  think 
of  it  as  a  confession  of  the  invalidity  of  my  past  min- 
istry. I  believed  myself  to  be  no  more  and  no  less 
truly  a  minister  of  Jesus  Christ  after  I  had  been  or- 
dained in  the  Church  of  England  than  I  was  before. 
So  much  may  be  conceded  without  any  jeopardizing 
of  principle.  My  action  in  submitting  to  reordination 
was  no  slight  upon  Nonconformity  in  general  nor 
my  own  twenty  years'  previous  ministry  in  particular. 
When  would-be  controversialists  maintained  the  op- 
posite and  wrote  to  me  to  say  that  in  being  reordained 
I  was  practically  admitting  that  I  had  never  before 
been  entitled  to  call  myself  a  Christian  minister,  I 
could  have  replied  that  I  admitted  nothing  of  the 
sort.  My  reordination  was  no  judgment  upon  my 
earlier  ministry  one  way  or  the  other.  That  ministry 
was  what  it  was,  had  its  own  value,  and  nothing  that 
any  ecclesiastical  authority  could  say  or  do  could  make 
it  diff erent. 

To  put  the  matter  on  the  lowest  ground,  I  was  now 
receiving  authority  to  minister  in  the  Church  of  Eng- 
land, and  that  authority  was  conveyed  by  the  laying 
on  of  hands.  Would  it  have  been  reasonable  to  re- 
fuse to  accept  it  on  the  ground  that  I  believed  I  had 
already  been  validly  ordained?  The  answer  might 
have  taken  this  form:   Yes,  you  may  have  been,  so 


REORDINATION  265 


far  as  the  denomination  to  which  you  belonged  is  con- 
cerned; but  in  the  Church  to  which  you  now  belong 
the  right  to  minister  is  conferred  by  the  imposition  of 
the  hands  of  a  bishop ;  you  must  choose  whether  you 
will  submit  to  this  rite  or  go  without  the  Orders ;  you 
cannot  expect  to  upset  the  whole  system  of  the  Church 
by  having  an  exception  made  in  your  case ;  we  do  not 
question  the  validity  of  your  previous  Orders  for  the 
kind  of  ministry  you  then  exercised — do  not  take  the 
matter  into  consideration  at  all — but  you  must  not 
think  of  trying  to  force  that  method  and  that  view  of 
the  ministry  upon  us  of  another  communion. 

Of  course,  no  such  argument  could  ever  have  been 
used,  and  no  one  would  have  dreamed  of  it.  The  real 
point  was  that  in  the  opinion  of  some  Nonconformists 
I  ought  to  have  remained  a  Nonconformist  rather 
than  allow  myself  to  go  through  the  ceremony  of  re- 
ordination  necessary  for  becoming  a  clergyman  of 
the  Church  of  England.  And,  as  I  hope  I  have  shown 
above  with  sufficient  clearness,  that  was  not  an  alter- 
native which  I  should  have  cared  to  contemplate :  too 
much  would  have  been  sacrificed.  Or,  to  put  the  mat- 
ter more  accurately,  most  of  these  good  people  would 
have  been  willing  that  I  should  become  a  layman  and 
never  preach  again  at  all  rather  than  be  reordained. 
The  more  extreme  among  them,  I  have  some  ground 
for  believing,  would  have  viewed  this  prospect  with 
equanimity,  for  it  is  a  curious  thing  that  the  only 
angry  protests  I  have  received  from  Nonconformists 
against  my  reordination,  or  almost  the  only  ones,  have 
been  from  persons  who  did  their  utmost  in  days  gone 


266      A  SPIRITUAL  PILGRIMAGE 


by  to  drive  me  out  of  the  Nonconformist  ministry  alto- 
gether. That  they  should  have  anything  to  say  on  the 
subject  of  my  reordination  is  somewhat  remarkable 
in  the  circumstances.  The  inference  is  irresistible  that 
they  would  have  had  no  objection  to  my  voice  being 
silenced  but  a  very  great  objection  to  its  being  heard 
in  an  Anglican  pulpit.  Truly  it  might  be  said  of  them 
as  of  certain  over-zealous  apostles  of  old,  "Ye  know 
not  what  manner  of  spirit  ye  are  of." 

But  let  it  not  be  supposed  that  this  grudging  atti- 
tude was  the  one  taken  by  Nonconformists  in  general. 
It  was  not.  And  on  the  whole  I  think  it  may  fairly 
be  said  that  the  feeling  of  my  former  coreligionists 
towards  me  at  this  time  was  one  of  charity  and  good- 
will, as  was  well  exemplified  by  Dr.  Clifford  at  my 
valedictory  meeting  in  the  City  Temple.  They  felt 
that  the  question  of  reordination  was  crucial  for  them, 
but  did  not  dispute  my  right  to  do  what  I  felt  con- 
scientiously bound  to  do,  and  indubitably  they  had  no 
wish  to  see  me  prevented  from  continuing  to  be  a 
preacher,  even  though  under  other  and  widely  diff er- 
ent  auspices. 

The  above  is,  I  repeat,  the  lowest  ground  on  which 
the  subject  could  be  argued,  but  I  hold  that  it  would 
be  sufficient  of  itself  to  justify  my  action.  The  issue 
from  this  point  of  view  is  narrowed  down  to  the  one 
vital  question  as  to  whether  I  was  called  to  take  Holy 
Orders  in  the  Church  of  England  or  not.  Lay  com- 
munion would  have  disposed  of  the  difficulty  from 
the  Nonconformist  side.  But  if  lay  communion  was 
not  enough;  if  I  was  to  continue  to  be  a  preacher, 


REORDINATION 


207 


let  alone  serve  the  altar,  I  must  receive  episcopal  ordi- 
nation. On  the  one  simple  ground  as  to  what  was 
practical  and  desirable  there  could  only  be  one  de- 
cision possible. 

But  I  am  far  from  wishing  to  suggest  that  this  is 
all  that  was  involved — that  is,  to  me  personally.  To 
Nonconformists  it  should  be  enough.  To  my  own 
thinking  there  was  more  at  stake,  much  more.  Every- 
thing turned  on  the  question  of  the  constitution  of  the 
Church  of  Christ.  What  was  the  Church?  Where 
was  it?  Wherein  consisted  its  principal  title  to  wit- 
ness and  mediate  Jesus  Christ  to  the  sinful,  sorrowing 
world?  Did  our  Lord  found  a  Church  or  not?  If  so, 
did  He  leave  any  directions  for  its  proper  adminis- 
tration? Was  its  continuity  in  space  and  time  of 
importance  or  to  be  left  out  of  account?  I  thought 
I  knew  the  answer  to  these  questions  sufficiently 
well  to  make  it  imperative  that  I  should  seek  to 
place  myself  more  fully  in  line  with  Christian  his- 
*  tory.  I  did  not  deny,  I  do  not  deny,  that  a  true  and 
real  Christian  life  can  be  lived,  and  is  being  lived, 
outside  the  main  current  of  Catholic  tradition,  but  it 
has  become  clear  to  me  that  it  is  only  within  that  cur- 
rent that  a  full,  all-round  Christian  development  can 
be  realized,  especially  in  its  social  aspects.  There  is 
loss  and  impoverishment  in  remaining  apart,  a  loss 
and  impoverishment  which  extends  in  some  degree  to 
the  parent  stock  likewise.  That  our  Lord  did  mean 
to  found  a  visible  society  is,  I  think,  obvious  to  an  im- 
partial reader  of  His  recorded  words,  and  from  the 
sense  in  which  they  were  always  understood  and  acted 


268      A  SPIRITUAL  PILGRIMAGE 


upon  by  His  followers  in  the  apostolic  and  sub-apos- 
tolic age.  One  need  appeal  only  to  the  fact  that  the 
New  Testament  consistently  bears  witness  both  to 
the  visibility  and  the  unity  of  the  Church,  and  lays 
much  stress  upon  the  indispensableness  of  Communion 
with  the  Church  for  all  who  would  join  themselves  to 
Christ.  The  Church  was  the  body  of  which  He  was 
the  head,  and  all  individual  Christians  were  members 
thereof.  This  was  insisted  upon  all  the  way  through. 
The  Church  was  no  amorphous  aggregate  of  indi- 
vidual souls,  each  with  its  own  special  and  direct  rela- 
tionship to  the  living  head  but  standing  in  no  neces- 
sary relationship  to  the  rest ;  it  was  a  growing  organ- 
ism, a  society  which  He  indwelt  and  whose  divine  life 
was  shared  by  all  who  became  part  of  it.  When  the 
Christian  religion  first  emerges  into  history,  this  New 
Testament  view  of  the  meaning  of  the  Church  is  seen 
to  be  the  universally  accepted  one.  There  is  no 
question  of  two  or  more  churches  or  of  local  churches 
independent  of  the  main  body  of  Christians.  There 
is  but  one  Church,  and  to  be  a  Christian  at  all  is  to 
belong  to  that  one  Church.  No  one  thinks  of  the 
invisible  Church — that  is,  the  totality  of  believers — 
as  having  a  greater  significance  than  the  visible.  The 
very  fundamental  idea  of  Christian  faith  and  worship 
forbade  such  an  assumption.  All  other  religions  were 
local  and  national  in  their  organization ;  the  Christian 
ecclesia  claimed  to  be  universal,  one  and  the  same 
society  everywhere.  Admission  to  it  was  perfectly 
definite  and  easily  recognizable ;  the  gateway  was  bap- 
tism, and  it  was  held  that  the  ceremony  of  Christian 


REORDINATION 


269 


baptism  constituted  the  person  submitting  to  it  an 
integral  part  of  the  universal  Christian  society,  the 
Catholic  Church. 

How  this  can  fairly  be  disputed  I  cannot  see.  I  am 
concerned  only  with  facts,  not  with  theories,  and  I 
judge  it  to  be  a  self-evident  fact  that  the  Church  in 
New  Testament  times  and  throughout  all  its  early 
history,  so  far  as  that  history  is  accessible,  was  reck- 
oned to  be  indivisibly  one  in  all  senses.  No  local 
church  was,  strictly  speaking,  a  church  at  all;  it  was 
the  local  representative  of  the  universal  Church.  The 
Church  in  Jerusalem  was  the  same  as  the  Church  in 
Rome,  Alexandria,  Ephesus,  and  Antioch.  Heresies 
and  schisms  there  might  be  in  plenty,  but  they  were 
viewed  with  apprehension  and  abhorrence,  and  even 
schismatics,  to  obtain  a  hearing,  had  to  claim  to  be  in 
the  true  apostolic  succession.  As  far  back  as  Tertul- 
lian's  day  their  inability  to  prove  such  a  claim  was  held 
to  be  conclusive  against  their  doctrinal  positions.1  It 
would  be  impossible  to  exaggerate  the  firmness  with 
which  the  outward  unity  of  the  Christian  fabric  was 
maintained  in  primitive  times.  Hardly  anyone,  I 
should  think,  would  say  otherwise.  The  modern  world 
has  unfortunately  become  habituated  to  the  thought 
of  a  divided  Christendom,  but  anything  more  unlike 
primitive  Christian  thought  and  practice  cannot  well 
be  imagined.  And  the  Church  of  the  early  Chris- 
tian centuries  had  the  best  of  reasons  for  its  assump- 
tion that  formal  unity  was  of  the  essence  of  its  well- 
being.   The  Christian  society  was  not  as  other  socie- 

1  De  Praeser,  pp.  3  et  32. 


270      A  SPIRITUAL  PILGRIMAGE 


ties;  it  was  not  a  mere  human  institution,  a  club,  a 
guild,  a  voluntary  association  of  believers  in  a  com- 
mon cause,  or  even  a  nation — though  it  was  sometimes 
described  as  a  holy  nation.  It  was  a  mystical  entity, 
an  earthly  sodality  with  a  superearthly  source  and 
sanction,  an  order  permeated  and  sustained  by  a 
supernatural  life. 

If  this  fact  of  facts  has  been  largely  lost 
sight  of  in  the  religion  with  which  the  ordinary 
Englishman  is  most  familiar  today,  where  does 
the  blame  rest?  Is  it  not  traceable  to  the  coun- 
tenance we  have  so  long  extended  to  the  notion  that 
any  set  of  people  can  make  their  own  Church  at  will, 
that  the  gospel  and  not  the  Cnurch  is  the  first  thing 
to  be  considered  in  the  organization  of  religious  life? 
As  if  the  gospel  could  ever  be  rightly  dissociated 
from  its  setting  and  background  in  the  unbroken  con- 
tinuity of  the  witness  of  the  Church  to  the  presence 
of  its  Divine  Founder  in  the  midst  of  His  own!  I  am 
conscious  as  I  write  these  words  of  the  difficulty  of 
making  them  understood  by  a  certain  type  of  Prot- 
estant mind.  Can  nothing  be  done  to  rescue  the 
Christianity  of  the  present-day  English-speaking 
world  from  the  calamitous  error  that  it  is  only  a  set 
of  views  to  be  promulgated — and  a  more  or  less  in- 
coherent and  unstable  set  of  views  at  that — and  not 
a  life  to  be  lived  in  corporate  and  immediate  fellow- 
ship with  another  and  higher  world  than  that  of  our 
everyday  perceptions?  This  is  practically  the  whole 
issue  between  sacramental  and  nonsacramental  re- 
ligion as  it  confronts  us  just  now. 


REORDINATION  271 

To  the  question,  Why  does  succession  matter  either 
in  the  society  itself  or  its  ministers?  I  would  answer, 
Because  all  life  is  fundamentally  one.  Nothing  is 
unimportant  that  helps  to  demonstrate  that  oneness. 
You  cannot  legitimately  sever  the  present  from  the 
past  or  the  substance  from  the  form.  You  cannot 
cut  off  one  part  from  another  and  dub  it  secular  or 
sacred,  material  or  spiritual,  at  your  discretion.  Out- 
ward and  inward,  lower  and  higher,  they  are  one :  the 
lesser  the  expression  of  the  greater.  It  all  means, 
means  intensely,  as  Robert  Louis  Stevenson  would 
say;  means  all  together  and  in  its  wholeness.  It  is  no- 
bodiless  good  that  we  propagate.  I  have  a  spiritual 
life  to  live,  but  I  have  to  live  it  under  physical  condi- 
tions and  within  limitations  and  activities  which  often 
seem  to  bear  no  relation  to  its  essential  quality.  But  I 
know  that  nothing  is  unrelated  to  the  ultimate  reali- 
ties of  my  being  and  destiny;  it  all  means,  means  in- 
tensely; humanity  is  a  solidarity — so  is  creation,  for 
that  matter.  And  to  bid  me  try  to  distinguish  be- 
tween my  life  in  the  world  and  my  life  in  God,  so  as 
always  to  be  guarding  the  latter  from  contamination 
with  the  former,  is  to  be  in  danger  of  falling  into  an 
ancient  heresy  and  to  divide  me  into  two  persons.  No, 
what  I  want  is  to  have  the  whole  of  life  purified  and 
sanctified,  to  have  the  supernatural  absorb  and  trans- 
form the  natural,  to  relate  Christ  to  it  in  every  part 
and  particle  and  make  it  utterly  and  completely 
His. 

Progress  in  matters  ecclesiastical  is  not  by  fission. 
If  the  Church  is  ever  to  overcome  the  world  and  trans- 


272      A  SPIRITUAL  PILGRIMAGE 


form  it  into  the  kingdom  of  God,  it  will  not  be  by- 
splitting  up  into  cults;  it  can  only  be  by  realizing 
and  giving  full  expression  to  the  conviction  that  man- 
kind is  one  because  God  is  one,  and  the  Church  is 
one  because  Christ  is  one. 

Did  our  Master  and  Lord  leave  behind  Him  un- 
equivocal guidance,  which  no  future  generation  could 
misunderstand,  as  to  the  way  in  which  His  Church 
was  to  be  ruled  and  organized?  No;  He  promised 
that  the  Holy  Spirit  should  supply  all  such  guidance 
as  it  might  be  needed,  and  that  promise  has  been  won- 
drously  fulfilled.  Not  till  the  moral  abuses  of  the 
Roman  hierarchy  goaded  the  conscience  of  Europe 
into  a  revolt  that  shattered  the  outward  unity  of  the 
Church  was  the  obligation  to  maintain  that  unity  ever 
seriously  questioned.  Now  we  have  got  to  get  it  back ; 
civilization  is  perishing  for  lack  of  it.  Protestant- 
ism is  losing  ground,  and  Catholicism  languishes. 
Could  anyone  reasonably  contend  that  our  Savior's 
valedictory  prayer  in  the  upper  room  at  Jerusalem 
would  find  an  adequate  answer  in  the  perpetuation 
of  such  a  state  of  things  as  exists  today  wherever  His 
gospel  is  preached  and  His  name  held  in  honor?  It 
were  impious  to  think  so.  He  did  take  pains  to 
insure  both  unity  and  continuity  as  far  as  these  could 
be  insured  by  any  specific  and  definite  act  in  addition 
to  His  own  plain  words,  and  that  was  by  appointing 
a  ministry  whose  authority  was  never  afterwards  de- 
puted but  by  the  laying  on  of  hands  so  far  as  any 
record  of  apostolic  practice  survives.  No  better 
method  could  have  been  devised  of  conserving  the 


REORDINATION 


273 


identity  of  the  new  Israel  than  by  thus  giving  it  into 
the  charge  of  pastors  appointed  by  the  Lord  Him- 
self. There  is  no  clear  indication  in  the  New  Testa- 
ment or  in  primitive  Christian  observance  that  any 
other  method  of  perpetuating  the  ministry  was 
thought  of  than  by  appointment  by  authority,  the 
authority  of  those  who  already  held  the  office.  A 
chain  of  consecrating  hands  extends  all  the  way 
through  the  centuries  from  the  hour  when  the  risen 
Lord  originally  said  to  an  awe-stricken  group  of 
Galileans,  "As  my  Father  hath  sent  Me,  even  so 
send  I  you."  1  The  choice  of  local  disciples  may 
have  fallen  upon  this  or  that  member  of  their  com- 
munity to  preside  over  them  in  spiritual  things,  but 
so  far  as  we  have  any  information  on  the  subject 
at  all,  or  are  able  to  infer  what  happened,  it  goes 
to  show  that  every  such  choice  had  to  be  ratified  by 
the  laying  on  of  hands  of  the  apostles  or  the  pres- 
bytery, whatever  that  may  mean.  I  am  not  taking 
anything  for  granted  in  saying  so;  I  but  assert  that, 
whoever  or  whatever  the  presbyters  were,  there  is 
ample  justification  for  the  view  that  they  never  at- 
tempted to  exercise  authority  in  the  Church  with- 
out being  invested  with  the  power  to  do  so  by  the 
apostles  or  someone  acting  in  their  stead  or  deriving 
his  ministry  mediately  or  immediately  from  theirs. 

1  This  remark  may  be  challenged  by  some  who  deny  that  the 
apostolic  succession  of  the  ministry  has  been  maintained.  To 
this  I  would  reply  that,  if  it  had  been  broken  fifty  times  over, 
one  validly  consecrated  bishop  would  have  been  enough  to  restore 
it  in  its  fullness. 


274      A  SPIRITUAL  PILGRIMAGE 

The  laying  on  of  hands  could  have  been  no  empty- 
form;  it  must  have  meant  something,  and,  even  as  the 
outward  and  visible  sign  of  the  conveyance  of  author- 
ity, pointed  to  the  original  bestowal  of  the  trust  by 
the  hands  of  Christ  Himself  and  passed  on  from  man 
to  man  and  generation  to  generation.  The  prophet 
may  have  needed  no  such  outward  attestation  of  his 
right  to  instruct  the  flock  of  Christ ;  his  word  was  its 
own  evidence;  but  if  there  be  one  fact  which  may  be 
reasonably  regarded  as  beyond  dispute  it  is  that  the 
ordinary  minister,  by  whatever  name  he  is  called, 
was  instituted  by  this  method.  His  commission  came 
from  Christ  through  the  apostolic  college  or  men 
appointed  thereby  in  due  succession. 

It  will  be  observed  that  up  to  this  point  I  have  said 
not  a  word  about  the  episcopate  or  attempted  to  set- 
tle the  question  of  the  threefold  order  of  the  minis- 
try per  saltum,  as  it  were.  I  have  been  content  to 
show  why,  in  my  judgment,  continuity  both  in  space 
and  time  must  be  held  of  the  very  first  importance 
to  the  life  of  the  Church.  I  could  say  much  more  on 
the  point,  but  I  forbear:  what  is  salient  to  the  issue 
can  be  put  into  a  very  few  words,  and  I  have  tried  to 
do  it,  with  what  success  I  leave  it  to  the  reader  to  de- 
cide for  himself.  I  have  given  reason  why  likewise 
this  desired  continuity  could  best  be  secured  by  the 
apostolic  succession  of  the  ministry,  but  I  have  not 
said  anything  about  grades  or  distinctions  in  the  min- 
istry. That  is  an  enormous  field  of  inquiry  into  which 
for  our  present  purpose  I  feel  it  unnecessary  to  enter. 
But  will  anyone  incline  to  quarrel  with  the  further 


REORDINATION  275 


statement  that,  if  the  responsibility  of  securing  the 
succession  of  the  ministry  had  been  left  with  the  whole 
body  of  duly  ordained  ministers,  after  the  Church 
began  to  grow  and  develop  to  such  an  extent  that  its 
missionaries  had  penetrated  to  every  quarter  of  the 
Roman  world,  there  would  soon  have  been  confusion 
and  disorder?  It  was  inevitable  that  there  should 
have  been  some  well-understood  restriction  of  the 
power  of  conferring  Holy  Orders.  And  is  it  not  sig- 
nificant that,  as  soon  as  the  Church  becomes  a  force 
in  history,  the  episcopate,  as  distinguished  from  the 
presbyterate,  is  seen  to  be  fully  and  universally  es- 
tablished? I  do  not  contend  for  any  more.  There  is 
the  fact,  a  fact  not  to  be  explained  away,  that  for  the 
long  period  during  which  the  Church  preserved  its 
outward  unity  unbroken,  the  practically  universal 
mode  of  government  was  that  which  in  its  essential 
features  still  obtains  in  the  greater  part  of  Christen- 
dom. The  new  beginning  in  the  sixteenth  century 
overthrew  it,  as  far  as  the  newly  formed  Protestant 
communities  were  concerned,  but  the  question  is  at 
least  worth  asking  whether  these  communities  would 
have  dispensed  with  bishops  if  they  could  have  got 
bishops — that  is,  accredited  representatives  of  the 
episcopal  order.  In  most  cases  it  was  Hobson's  choice. 
Archbishop  Hermann  of  Cologne  is  an  isolated  figure 
in  his  day.  And,  whether  or  no,  does  that  violent 
break  justify  us  in  going  behind  the  theory  and  prac- 
tice of  a  thousand  years?  If  we  are  ever  to  get  to- 
gether again  it  cannot  be  upon  the  model  of  Geneva. 
This  is  why  I  have  had  no  misgivings  and  no  hesita- 


270      A  SPIRITUAL  PILGRIMAGE 


tion  in  getting  into  line  with  historic  Christianity  by 
receiving  my  commission  anew  from  the  hands  of  a 
bishop  of  the  One  Holy,  Catholic  and  Apostolic 
Church. 


CHAPTER  XII 


TOWARDS  REUNION 

That  all  devout  minds  are  hungering  for  the  heal- 
ing of  the  sad  divisions  of  Christendom  has  long  been 
apparent  to  any  observer  of  the  signs  of  the  times. 
Tentative  eff orts  towards  this  much-to-be-desired  end 
have  been  repeatedly  made  since  the  Lambeth  pro- 
posals of  1888 — the  first  serious  approach  of  the  kind 
from  the  side  of  episcopacy  to  the  Nonconformists 
since  the  days  of  Archbishop  Tillotson.  We  are  all 
watching  with  sympathetic  interest  the  parallel  move- 
ment which  is  going  on  between  the  two  great  Pres- 
byterian churches  north  of  the  Tweed,  and  it  may 
reasonably  be  expected  that  if  that  movement  suc- 
ceeds it  will  have  a  considerable  and  most  beneficial 
influence  on  the  relations  of  the  established  and  non- 
established  religious  communions  in  England.  It  may 
show  us  the  way  to  solve  the  problem  of  combining 
solemn  and  definite  State  recognition  of  religion  with 
complete  spiritual  autonomy  for  the  Church.  Similar 
movements  have  long  been  in  progress  in  our  over- 
seas dominions  from  which  the  mother  country  might 
very  well  learn.  Then,  as  aforesaid,  we  have  the 
promising  negotiations  initiated  by  Mr.  Shakespeare 
for  welding  the  various  Nonconformist  bodies  into 
a  United  Free  Church  of  England.    Lastly,  there 

277 


278      A  SPIRITUAL  PILGRIMAGE 


has  been  the  significant  and  highly  important  appeal 
of  the  American  Protestant  denominations  for  a 
unity  which  shall  not  only  embrace  American 
Christianity  as  a  whole,  but  that  of  the  Old  World 
likewise.  It  is  a  bold  program,  but  is  being  vigor- 
ously promoted,  and  but  for  the  war  might  by  now 
have  been  well  on  the  way  towards  realization.  Rome 
of  course  stands  aloof;  no  other  attitude  could  be 
contemplated  at  the  present  stage;  but  the  idea  of 
bringing  the  scattered  Protestant — or,  to  be  exact, 
non-Roman — Christian  communities  of  the  world  into 
closer  cooperation  and  ultimate  fusion  has  already 
borne  valuable  fruit.  The  deputation  which  visited 
this  country  some  years  ago  has  so  far  succeeded  in 
its  purpose  that  it  has  brought  into  existence  a  joint 
committee  of  Churchmen  and  Nonconformists  which 
is  still  sitting,  and  has  lately  produced  a  remarkable 
declaration  of  agreement  in  regard  to  matters  of  faith, 
though  it  has  not  yet  been  able  to  achieve  a  similar 
understanding  in  regard  to  order.  But  could  anyone, 
have  prophesied  a  generation  or  even  a  decade  ago 
that  so  much  as  this  was  within  the  bounds  of  possi- 
bility? It  augurs  well  for  the  future.  We  may  take 
it  as  certain  that  doctrine  will  not  be  the  insuperable 
barrier  to  reunion  when  the  time  comes,  as  come  it 
will,  to  discuss  the  subject  on  a  larger  scale  and  in 
all  its  bearings.  If  there  be  an  insuperable  barrier, 
which  God  forbid,  it  will  be  the  vexed  question  of 
orders.  Can  we  see  a  way  through  this  difficulty  as 
well  as  the  other?  I  think  so  if  we  are  in  earnest  to 
find  it. 


TOWARDS  REUNION  279 


It  is  useless  to  minimize  the  seriousness  of  the 
issue  thus  involved,  or  to  try  to  persuade  either  party 
to  regard  it  as  nonessential.  The  only  solution  of  the 
problem  that  would  be  entertained  must  be  one  that 
will  allow  full  scope  and  deference  to  what  each  feels 
to  be  a  vital  principle.  The  question  to  be  discussed 
is  whether  a  modus  vivendi  can  be  arrived  at  which 
would  give  us  all  the  advantages  of  combination  with- 
out sacrificing  anything  which  Nonconformist  or 
Episcopalian  believes  to  be  indispensable  to  his  Chris- 
tianity. That  is  the  sole  point,  and  I  for  one  am 
not  without  hope  that  it  can  be  got  over,  and  that 
without  unreality  or  pretense  or  leaving  outstanding 
differences  untouched. 

Are  Nonconformist  churches  true  churches? 
Judged  by  the  tests  of  catholicity  and  apostolicity, 
they  might  be  found  wanting.  But  there  is  one  su- 
preme test  by  which  they  would  not  be  found  wanting : 
Ubi  Christus  ibi  ecclesia.  No  extremest  sacerdotalist 
would  deny  that  Nonconformists  as  individuals 
already  belong  to  the  Church  of  God,  whatever  may 
be  said  of  their  associations  for  worship.  Roman 
Catholics  admit  that  as  baptized  Christians  they  be- 
long to  the  soul  of  the  Church,  though  not  to  its  body. 
Personally  I  would  affirm  that  there  must  be  a  true 
sense  in  which  every  body  of  believers  wherein  spirit- 
ual life  is  to  be  found  is  a  church.  Does  a  branch  on 
which  foliage  and  fruit  appear  cease  to  be  part  of  a 
tree  merely  because  it  grows  on  the  other  side  of  a 
garden  wall  away  from  the  parent  trunk?  No  gar- 
dener would  say  so,  though  he  might  deplore  the  fact 


280      A  SPIRITUAL  PILGRIMAGE 


that  the  wall  was  there  and  that  the  growth  of  the 
branch  had  been  so  irregular  as  to  weaken  the  tree 
p  itself  and  spoil  its  symmetry.  Let  us  proceed  upon 
that  basis  and  we  shall  get  on;  otherwise  we  shall  fail 
in  any  overtures  for  a  resumption  of  corporate 
fellowship. 

Again,  would  anyone  dare  to  deny  the  presence 
of  the  Holy  Ghost  in  the  work  of  the  Nonconformist 
ministry  ?  It  is  this  token  of  God's  blessing  upon  the 
labors  of  men  not  episcopally  ordained  that  I  had 
specially  in  mind  in  saying  in  the  previous  chapter 
that  I  regard  myself  as  no  more  and  no  less  truly  a 
minister  of  Christ  today  than  I  was  when  I  preached 
in  the  City  Temple.  I  have  received  a  new  authority, 
authority  to  serve  the  altar,  but  in  the  prophetic  sense 
my  earlier  ministry  was  as  valid  as  the  one  I  am  exer- 
cising now :  in  fact  it  is  the  same.  God  is  not  confined 
to  any  channel  of  grace.  In  all  ages  He  has  chosen 
His  own  instruments  to  declare  His  word  and  in- 
spired them  for  the  purpose:  the  prophet  cannot  be 
restrained  from  speaking  any  more  than  he  can  be 
« udowed  to  speak  his  message  of  life  and  power  by 
ittly  ecclesiastical  authority  whatsoever.  It  is  a  direct 
fift  of  God  and  needs  no  other  sign  of  its  authenticity 

lan  the  sign  of  the  prophet  Jonah,  its  effect  in  the 
hearts  of  men. 

But  this  consideration  gives  rise  to  a  very  impor- 
tant further  point.  Nonconformists  have  never 
claimed  any  other  kind  of  orders  for  their  ministers 
than  this.  It  is  the  charismatic  gift,  and  that  alone, 
that  they  value  in  the  exercise  of  a  ministry,  the  ut- 


TOWARDS  REUNION 


281 


terance  of  the  prophetic  word.  This  is  all  they  have 
historically  insisted  upon  in  this  connection,  the  valid- 
ity of  the  ministry  of  the  word,  whereas  I  think 
they  make  a  mistake  is  in  regarding  this  as  the  only 
kind  of  valid  ministry  and  refusing  to  recognize  any 
other.  But  let  that  pass  for  the  moment:  what  I  am 
emphasizing  is  the  indisputable  fact  that  the  only 
validity  that  has  ever  been  asserted  of  Nonconformist 
orders,  or  which  Churchmen  are  asked  to  recognize, 
is  the  validity  of  the  charismatic  gift,  a  validity  which 
no  Churchman  who  knows  anything  of  Nonconform- 
ist history  can  do  other  than  reverently  concede  un- 
less, as  Canon  Adderley  says,  he  is  willing  to  incur 
the  risk  of  committing  the  sin  against  the  Holy 
Ghost.1 

Turn  now  to  the  other  side  of  the  question.  Have 
Nonconformists  been  equally  clear  upon  the  subject 
of  sacramental  grace  ?  It  almost  goes  without  saying 
that  they  have  not.  Calvin's  teaching,  like  that  of 
most  of  the  great  Protestant  reformers,  concerning 
Christ's  covenanted  presence  in  the  sacrament  of  the 
Lord's  Supper  was  very  strong,  almost  as  strong  as 
any  sacramentalist  could  desire;  but  it  is  a  matter 
of  history  that  this  view  has  not  been  maintained  by 
the  non-episcopal  Christian  communities  which  have 

1  This  statement  perhaps  needs  qualifying.  There  are  Non- 
conformist ministers  who  would  strongly  affirm  that  their  orders 
are  in  all  respects  what  Anglican  orders  are,  and  for  the  same 
purposes.  I  cannot  argue  the  point  here,  but  I  think  what  is 
said  above  may  be  taken  on  the  whole  as  a  fair  description  of 
the  general  Nonconformist  view  of  the  subject. 


282      A  SPIRITUAL  PILGRIMAGE 

succeeded  to  his  inheritance  and  have  their  represen- 
tatives in  this  and  other  countries  at  the  present  day. 
Why  is  this?  Do  I  say  too  much  in  suggesting  with 
Father  Kelly  that  it  may  be,  probably  is,  because  of 
the  break  with  the  past  effected  by  their  repudiation 
of  the  historic  episcopate?  The  inference  is  to  my 
mind  irresistible.  "In  effect,"  says  this  able  and  de- 
voted Anglican  writer,  who  has  great  respect  for 
Nonconformists  and  desires  to  learn  from  them, 
"even  where  men  have  for  a  time  separated  the  two, 
the  belief  in  a  real  sacramental  Presence  and  gift 
and  the  belief  in  a  sacramental  Episcopacy  have  by 
an  inexorable  human  logic  always  gone  together. 
Wherever  the  Episcopal  ministry  has  been  rejected, 
the  sacramental  belief  has  failed.  Wherever  belief 
in  a  sacramental  gift  has  been  weakened,  Episcopacy 
has  been  defended  as  a  convenience  or  compromised 
as  a  question  of  minor  importance."  1 

"Precisely!"  some  stern  and  unbending  evangelical 
Nonconformist  might  argue.  "We  do  reject  both  for 
the  very  good  reason  that  we  believe  both  to  savor  of 
superstition  and  to  be  an  unwarranted  and  harmful 
accretion  to  primitive  Christian  faith  and  practice. 
Belief  in  an  objective  divine  presence  on  the  altar  in 
the  consecrated  elements  is  to  us  impossible,  and  we 
maintain  that  the  mode  by  which  that  presence  is 

1  The  Church  and  Religious  Unity,  p.  147.  With  much  of  the 
rest  of  Father  Kelly's  interesting  book  I  do  not  find  myself  in 
complete  agreement  It  betrays  an  inadequate  understanding  of 
the  gravamen  of  the  Nonconformist  indictment  of  prelacy  and 
of  State  establishments  of  religion. 


TOWARDS  REUNION 


283 


said  by  sacerdotalists  to  be  guaranteed,  namely  by 
the  utterance  of  a  certain  fixed  form  of  words  and  the 
performance  of  certain  manual  acts,  is  pure  magic 
and  therefore  degrades  a  sacred  ordinance  into  some- 
thing utterly  different  from  what  it  was  originally 
intended  to  be."  It  is  no  part  of  my  purpose  in  the 
present  connection  to  argue  against  this  view,  so 
strongly  and  conscientiously  held  by  millions  of  my 
fellow- Christians.  I  know — we  all  know — most  that 
can  be  said  for  and  against  it,  and  it  can  only  be  a 
wearisome  iteration  of  words  to  go  over  all  that 
ground  again,  besides  being  stale,  flat,  and  unprofit- 
able. Do  not  let  us  refight  our  ancient  battles:  we 
are  out  to  make  peace;  and  we  cannot  make  peace 
until  we  learn  to  understand  each  other  and  to  be 
willing  to  extend  charitable  allowance  to  its  utmost 
limits.  And  it  is  not  charitable  to  call  that  magic 
which  is  of  the  very  essence  of  the  Christian  life  of 
millions  of  God's  people,  not  in  the  Anglican  com- 
munion only,  but  in  the  great  Catholic  communions, 
of  East  and  West  and  their  associations  throughout 
the  world.  There  are  more  Christians  who  attach  rev- 
erent significance  to  this  supposed  magic  than  there 
are  of  those  who  will  have  nothing  to  do  with  it.  It 
has  nourished  the  spiritual  life  of  untold  numbers  of 
the  sweetest  and  most  heroic  saints  that  the  Christian 
centuries  have  produced.  Would  it  not  be  well, 
therefore,  to  pause  and  ask  whether  there  may  be 
more  in  this  magic  than  Protestants  generally  have 
been  willing  to  concede?  Magic  is  not  an  admissible 
name  for  it.  That  cannot  be  magic  which  has  a  moral 


284      A  SPIRITUAL  PILGRIMAGE 


meaning  as  the  sacrament  of  the  altar  undoubtedly 
has.  It  is  a  covenanted  spiritual  act,  no  wonder- 
working incantation,  no  abracadabra  mumbled  by 
a  wizard  as  a  spell  to  summon,  like  Glendower  in 
Henry  IV,  "spirits  from  the  vasty  deep."  It  is  no 
more  any  of  these  things  or  their  like  than  a  child's 
kiss  on  a  mother's  lips  belongs  to  the  same  category: 
is  the  love  between  two  hearts  any  less  real  for  be- 
ing dependent  in  a  measure  for  its  expression  upon 
a  simple  yet  conventional  physical  medium?  And, 
let  me  once  more  remind  Protestant  readers,  it  is 
dangerous  to  discriminate  too  sharply  between  what 
is  physical  and  what  is  spiritual,  between  outward 
and  inward.  The  efficacy  of  the  covenanted  act  de- 
pends upon  what  the  Church  has  always  understood 
by  it,  and  not  upon  this  or  that  specific  ritual  deed  or 
word.  Once  again  I  would  appeal  to  facts,  and  it  is 
a  fact  beyond  dispute  that  the  results  in  life  and 
character  of  a  belief  in  the  Real  Presence  in  the 
Blessed  Sacrament  have  been  and  are  so  abundantly 
good  and  beautiful  as  to  constitute  in  themselves  a 
demonstration  of  its  truth  and  a  justification  of  Cath- 
olic observance  in  regard  to  it. 

Moreover,  let  it  not  be  forgotten  that  Noncon- 
formists themselves  share  this  belief  to  a  certain  ex- 
tent. It  might  be  observed  that  they  share  it  in  a 
way  which  fails  to  make  it  distinctive  enough  or 
to  emphasize  its  value  for  Christian  experience,  but 
they  do  share  it.  They  believe  in  the  Lord's  Sup- 
per as  a  means  of  grace  as  well  as  a  memorial  service, 
though  they  stress  the  latter.  Most  if  not  all  of  them 


TOWARDS  REUNION  285 


would  admit  that  in  the  practice  of  primitive  Chris- 
tianity "the  Lord's  own  service"  was  central  to  the 
Church's  life.  Would  it  be  a  very  long  step  for  them 
to  acknowledge  that  something  would  be  gained  by 
restoring  it  to  that  central  position  once  more? 
Theories  apart,  can  we  not  agree  that  our  Lord's 
promise  to  be  with  His  own  even  unto  the  end  of  the 
age  receives  special  fulfillment  when  we  gather  around 
His  holy  table  to  partake  in  common  of  the  sacra- 
mental meal?  I  do  not  think  that  Hooker's  words 
written  three  centuries  and  a  half  ago  have  yet  lost 
their  force  and  appositeness  in  reference  to  the  mys- 
tery of  the  Holy  Communion:  "But  seeing  that  by 
opening  the  several  opinions  which  have  been  held, 
they  are  grown  for  aught  I  can  see  on  all  sides  at 
the  length  to  a  general  agreement  concerning  that 
which  alone  is  material,  namely  the  real  participation 
of  Christ  and  of  life  in  His  body  and  blood  by  means 
of  this  sacrament;  wherefore  should  the  world  con- 
tinue still  distracted  and  rent  with  so  manifold  con- 
tentions, when  there  remaineth  now  no  controversy 
saving  only  about  the  subject  where  Christ  is?  Yea 
even  in  this  point  no  side  denieth  but  that  the  soul  of 
man  is  the  receptacle  of  Christ's  presence.  Whereby 
the  question  is  yet  driven  to  a  narrower  issue,  nor 
doth  anything  rest  doubtful  but  this,  whether  when 
the  sacrament  is  administered  Christ  be  whole  within 
man  only,  or  else  His  body  and  blood  be  also  ex- 
ternally seated  in  the  very  consecrated  elements 
themselves.  .  .  .  All  things  considered  and  compared 
with  that  success  which  truth  hath  hitherto  had  by 


286      A  SPIRITUAL  PILGRIMAGE 


so  bitter  conflicts  with  errors  in  this  point,  shall  I 
wish  that  men  would  more  give  themselves  to  medi- 
tate with  silence  what  we  have  by  the  sacrament,  and 
less  to  dispute  of  the  manner  how?"  1  These  wise  and 
weighty  words  might  very  well  apply  mutatis  mu- 
tandis to  the  same  problem  as  it  confronts  us  at  the 
present  hour,  the  problem  of  reconciling  convictions 
which  are  apparently  in  hopeless  conflict  as  to  the 
meaning  to  be  attributed  to  our  Lord's  words :  "This 
is  my  body";  "This  is  my  blood." 

Further,  let  me  ask  my  former  coreligionists 
always  to  keep  before  their  minds  the  fact  that  this 
is  a  vital  subject  with  Catholics,  Anglican  or  other. 
There  can  be  no  reunion  which  would  tend  to  weaken 
in  any  wise  their  firm  belief  in  the  primacy  of  this 
question  over  all  else.  The  very  reason  why  they  take 
up  so  strong  a  position  about  the  validity  of  orders 
is  because  they  cannot  run  the  risk  of  compromising 
anything  that  would  endanger  the  doctrine  of  the 
Real  Presence.  This  is  for  them  fundamental.  They 
must  safeguard  the  altar  and  all  that  the  name  im- 
plies. Is  it  impossible  for  Nonconformists  to  meet 
them  on  this  ground  and  give  full  respect  to  a  con- 
viction which  has  shown  itself  to  have  so  much 
spiritual  value?  Surely  not.  It  has  been  well  said 
that  men  are  usually  right  in  what  they  affirm  and 
wrong  in  what  they  deny.  To  affirm  the  validity  of 
Nonconformist  orders  for  what  they  have  always 
claimed  to  be,  is  not  necessarily  to  deny  that  Anglo- 
Catholics  may  be  right  in  what  they  say  about  the 

1  Ecc.  Pol.,  Book  V.  chap,  lxvii. 


TOWARDS  REUNION  287 


necessity  of  making  sure  that  only  a  validly  ordained 
priesthood  should  be  allowed  to  consecrate  the  sacred 
elements.  To  admit  a  counter  principle  would  be  to 
run  the  risk  of  profaning  the  most  solemn  of  all  mys- 
teries, or  at  any  rate  to  weaken  its  significance.  Is 
it  too  much  to  ask  that  Nonconformists  should  recog- 
nize this  and  act  accordingly?  Do  they  give  any- 
thing away  by  so  doing?  I  would  point  out  that 
there  are  thousands  of  clergy  in  the  ranks  of  Angli- 
canism today  who  take  what  is  ordinarily  understood 
to  be  the  Nonconformist  attitude  on  the  point  at 
issue,  but  that  does  not  prevent  them  from  fulfilling 
all  the  requirements  of  their  sacramentalist  brethren, 
not  only  in  the  matter  of  ordination,  but  in  the  strict 
observance  of  ancient  Catholic  practice  in  the  manner 
of  administering  the  Holy  Communion.  Is  it  quite 
beyond  the  bounds  of  probability  that  Nonconform- 
ist ministers  as  a  whole  should  ultimately  be  per- 
suaded to  do  the  same?  Remember  what  is  at  stake: 
it  is  nothing  less  than  the  bringing  together  into  one 
fold  of  all  the  scattered  portions  of  Christ's  flock. 
And  on  no  other  conditions  is  it  possible. 

This  brings  us  back  to  the  point  of  episcopacy.  It 
is  absolutely  requisite  that  the  historic  episcopate 
should  be  accepted  by  all  the  non-episcopal  bodies, 
or  formal  unity  we  cannot  have.  The  historic  episco- 
pate represents  the  framework  of  Catholic  solidarity, 
and  the  sign,  symbol,  and  guaranty  of  the  unbroken 
succession  of  the  ordinary  as  distinguished  from  the 
extraordinary  ministry  of  the  Christian  Church.  It 
is  this  ordinary  ministry  which  is  associated  specific- 


288      A  SPIRITUAL  PILGRIMAGE 


ally  with  the  altar,  or  rather  the  presbyteral  order 
is  so  associated.  The  very  idea  of  the  altar  in  its 
Christian  use  may  legitimately  be  said  thus  to  depend 
upon  the  fact  of  the  historic  episcopate;  the  one  im- 
plies the  other.  Just  as  the  sacraments  imply  the 
visible  Church,  so  does  the  altar  imply  the  Bishop 
who  provides  for  its  maintenance.  The  advantages 
of  episcopal  government  as  such  we  need  not  dwell 
upon;  there  are  many  Nonconformists  who  would 
admit  them  without  going  any  farther.  But  episco- 
pacy as  a  method  of  government  is  not  sufficient;  it 
is  episcopacy  as  witnessing  for  an  uninterrupted  apos- 
tolic stream  of  life  and  power  that  is  in  question,  an 
outward  as  well  as  an  inward  sequence  of  spiritual 
fact  and  function.  The  American  Methodist  episco- 
pate would  not  do  as  fulfilling  this  condition,  for  it  is 
not  and  does  not  profess  to  be  the  lineal  descendant 
of  the  episcopate  of  the  undivided  Church.  I  am 
arguing  nothing  as  to  the  divine  origin  of  the  episco- 
pacy. I  take  my  stand  only  upon  the  practical 
ground  that  from  sub-apostolic  times  onward  till  the 
Reformation  the  episcopate  was  an  outstanding  fact, 
a  fact  which  cannot  be  assigned  to  a  second  place, 
in  the  fabric  of  the  Church.  All  that  we  now  asso- 
ciate with  its  spiritual  functions  are  generally  ad- 
mitted during  that  long  period.  It  was  through  the 
episcopate  and  not  otherwise  that  the  continuous 
identity  of  the  Church  and  its  ministry  was  main- 
tained. 

For  the  purpose  of  my  present  appeal  it  is  un- 
necessary to  inquire  whether  presbyter  and  Bishop 


TOWARDS  REUNION  289 


were  originally  the  same  person  or  not.  That  does 
not  matter.  What  does  matter  is  that  by  ancient  and 
general  consent  the  episcopate  as  an  order  distinct 
from  the  presbyterate  has  been  the  means  by  which 
the  presbyterate  itself,  and  with  it  the  whole  sacra- 
mental system  of  the  Catholic  Church,  has  been  sup- 
plied and  regulated  from  age  to  age.  How  can  any 
real  unity  be  thought  of  which  does  not  involve  com-; 
ing  within  the  orbit  and  operation  of  this  venerable 
existing  actuality?  The  historic  episcopate  is  here; 
it  has  not  to  be  rediscovered;  it  is  the  obvious  mold 
in  which  the  Catholic  unity  of  the  future  can  be 
achieved.  Personally  I  think  it  unlikely  that  the 
Church  was  ever  any  other  than  episcopally  governed, 
somewhat  in  the  modern  sense,  even  in  apostolic  times. 
No  local  church  could  be  efficiently  administered  by 
a  committee  of  presbyters  then  any  more  than  now; 
and  there  would  not  be  more  than  one  local  church 
in  any  given  city  or  district,  even  though  there  might 
be  more  than  one  congregation.  What  more  probable 
than  that  every  church — that  is,  every  diocese  in  em- 
bryo— should  have  had  its  presiding  elder  from  the 
first  whose  authority  came  to  him  direct  from  the 
apostolate?  But  as  I  cannot  prove  this  I  will  not 
rest  my  case  upon  it.  All  I  submit  is  that  in  the  wis- 
dom of  the  Church,  guided  as  we  must  believe  by 
the  Holy  Spirit  promised  to  that  very  end,  the  his- 
toric episcopate  came  into  existence  so  early,  has 
continued  so  long,  and  is  bound  up  with  so  much  that 
is  vital  to  the  best  interests  of  the  Christian  religion, 
that  it  cannot  be  dispensed  with  now  or  in  the  time 


290      A  SPIRITUAL  PILGRIMAGE 

to  come.  If  we  are  to  get  together  at  all  we  must 
get  together  upon  that  basis. 

This  at  once  raises  the  thorny  issue  of  reordination. 
Ought  it  to  be  required?  Will  Nonconformists  ever 
consent  to  it  ?  And  I  answer  that  that  depends  upon 
how  much  we  are  in  earnest  in  the  desire  to  unite. 
If  we  feel  that  unity  is  of  more  importance  than  the 
question  of  the  present  status  of  ministers  not  episco- 
pally  ordained  we  shall  find  a  way  through  it,  other- 
wise we  shall  not.  Let  it  be  remembered,  I  again 
venture  to  insist,  that  the  question  is  not  one  of  the 
validity  of  Nonconformist  orders.  The  validity  of 
Nonconformist  orders,  in  the  sense  explained  above 
as  understood  by  Nonconformists  themselves,  may 
be  freely  admitted  and  ought  to  be  admitted  by 
Anglicans  of  every  shade  without  endangering  any 
principle.  Will  Nonconformists  in  their  turn  admit 
that  the  question  of  the  service  of  the  altar  is  also 
of  vital  import  for  others  at  least?  If  we  can  get  as 
far  as  that  we  may  get  farther  very  soon.  We  are 
not  committed,  as  is  so  often  supposed,  to  the  logical 
opposite  of  any  affirmation.  For  a  Catholic  to  affirm 
the  doctrine  of  the  Real  Presence  in  the  objective 
sense  as  depending  upon  the  valid  act  of  consecration 
by  an  episcopally  ordained  priest  it  is  not  necessary 
to  deny  that  the  Protestant  may  experience  the  same 
Real  Presence  in  other  ways.  For  a  Protestant  to 
affirm  the  Real  Presence  of  Christ  in  the  heart  of  the 
believer  it  is  not  necessary  to  deny  that  Christ  may 
come  to  the  Catholic  along  the  line  of  his  expecta- 
tions ;  indeed  if  there  be  one  certitude  in  life  it  is  that 


TOWARDS  REUNION  291 


He  does  so  come,  and  it  would  be  strange  if  He  did 
not.  Christ  is  not  restricted  even  to  His  own  ordi- 
nances in  imparting  His  grace  to  the  soul  of  the  be- 
liever. But  that  is  no  reason  why  we  should  make 
light  of  modes  of  approach  to  the  most  holy  mystery 
of  the  communion  of  His  body  and  blood  which  have 
been  sanctified  by  time  and  Catholic  usage  as  well 
as  by  the  reverent  devotion  of  untold  millions  of  His 
people.  Nothing  is  lost  and  much  may  be  gained  by 
falling  in  with  that  which  is  long  established,  whether 
we  can  agree  that  it  is  of  divine  institution  or  not. 
A  seaman  can  sail  up  the  Firth  of  Clyde  outside  the 
course  which  experienced  mariners  have  charted  for 
him.  He  may  be  quite  safe  in  doing  so,  but  he  would 
be  no  less  safe  if  he  stayed  within  the  bounds  so 
marked.  Would  Nonconformists  be  any  worse  for 
doing  as  evangelical  Churchmen  do  in  conforming  so 
far  to  ancient  Catholic  belief  and  practice  as  would 
satisfy  earnest  and  devout  High  Churchmen?  Per- 
haps Tillotson's  proposal  for  overcoming  the  scruples 
of  both  parties  may  yet  prove  of  value,  notwithstand- 
ing the  many  years  that  have  elapsed  since  it  was 
first  put  forward  and  rejected  in  the  seventeenth  cen- 
tury. May  not  Nonconformist  ministers  in  a  body, 
by  solemn  resolution  and  with  utmost  dignity  and 
charity,  consent  to  the  reaffirmation  of  their  calling 
by  the  imposition  of  a  Bishop's  hands,  stating  at  the 
same  time  that  they  do  not  and  cannot  recognize  that 
their  ministry  hitherto  was  not  of  Christ's  ordinance? 
And  may  not  the  authoritative  guides  of  the  Church 
of  England  see  their  way  in  a  like  spirit  to  permit 


292      A  SPIRITUAL  PILGRIMAGE 


such  reordination  with  the  use,  as  Tillotson  sug- 
gested, of  some  such  preliminary  formula  as,  "If 
thou  art  not  already  ordained,"  etc.  I  admit  that  the 
circumstances  were  somewhat  different  in  the  cases 
with  which  Tillotson  was  prepared  to  deal,  but  the 
principle  is  the  same.  This  would  regularize  the 
position  for  the  Catholic,  and  would  not  invalidate 
it  for  the  Protestant. 

The  thought  may  suggest  itself  to  the  reader  that 
an  arrangement  of  this  kind  would  simply  mean  that 
Anglicanism  would  swallow  Nonconformity  whole, 
obliterating  all  its  distinctive  features  and  suppress- 
ing much  that  has  been  precious  and  blessed  to  gen- 
erations of  devout  and  earnest  people.  What,  for 
example,  would  become  of  free  prayer?  Would  all 
public  services  have  to  run  in  the  mold  of  the  Angli- 
can liturgy,  revised  or  unre vised?  What  of  the  free- 
dom of  initiative  so  long  enjoyed  by  individual 
churches  and  their  ministers;  in  future  would  these 
have  to  wait  for  a  Bishop's  faculty  without  being 
allowed  to  proceed  on  their  own  lines?  Would  peo- 
ple who  like  a  plain  and  simple  service  have  to  fore- 
go their  preference  in  favor  of  set  forms  for  which 
they  have  a  natural  dislike?  What  of  organization, 
rule,  method,  local  church  government  and  institu- 
tions? What  of  denominational  procedure,  colleges, 
endowments,  and  the  thousand  and  one  traditions  and 
customs  that  make  the  character  of  each  denomina- 
tion as  distinct  from  all  others?  There  are  more 
knotty  problems  even  than  these,  and,  as  I  have  more 
than  once  hinted  to  my  Anglican  confreres,  all  would 


TOWARDS  REUNION 


293 


not  be  plain  sailing  by  any  means  if  Nonconformists 
in  a  body  became  reunited  with  the  mother  Church. 
There  would  be  differences  of  spirit  and  temper  and 
general  outlook  to  be  composed,  difficulties  of  habit 
and  practice  to  be  surmounted,  prejudices  and  an- 
tagonisms to  be  done  away,  all  calling  for  patience, 
large-mindedness,  and  practical  wisdom  such  as  ec- 
clesiastical statesmanship  seldom  possesses  and  is  not 
able  to  presuppose  in  the  constituencies  with  which 
it  is  concerned. 

These  are  matters  which  cannot  be  ignored  or 
glossed  over,  and  I  am  far  from  wishing  to  pretend 
that  they  would  not  exist.  But  let  it  be  said  em- 
phatically that  they  have  no  necessary  connection 
with  Nonconformist  acceptance  of  the  historic  episco- 
pate in  the  manner  above  indicated.  It  does  not  fol- 
low that  episcopal  government  of  the  Church  must 
always  proceed  on  its  present  lines;  we  need  at  once 
more  flexibility  and  more  coherence  in  our  method. 
Someone  has  called  the  Church  of  England  the  worst 
governed  institution  in  the  world,  and  perhaps  he  is 
not  far  wrong.  To  say  that  it  is  full  of  anomalies  is 
only  to  say  that  it  is  characteristically  English.  But 
let  me  tell  my  Nonconformist  brethren  this:  there  is 
more  individual  freedom  even  now  within  the  Church 
of  England  than  in  any  Nonconformist  denomination 
of  my  acquaintance,  both  for  laity  and  clergy.  The 
incumbent  of  a  parish  has  too  much  freedom  in  my 
judgment  as  compared  with  his  Bishop,  and  I  for  one 
would  be  glad  to  see  the  powers  of  the  Bishop  greatly 
increased.    No  one  seems  to  be  sure  how  much  he 


294      A  SPIRITUAL  PILGRIMAGE 


may  do  and  how  much  he  may  not  do;  in  fact  no 
one  seems  to  be  sure  about  anything.  There  is  the 
greatest  variety  in  practice  and  the  widest  divergence 
in  opinion.  We  are  breaking  the  letter  of  the  law  all 
the  time  in  one  direction  or  another.  Oh,  believe  me, 
my  coreligionists  of  old,  you  would  have  plenty  of  el- 
bow room  for  your  little  idiosyncrasies  in  the  Church 
of  England  as  at  present  constituted.  It  is  nothing 
like  so  well  organized  and  directed  as  the  Established 
Church  of  Scotland  or  the  United  Free  Church  of 
that  country;  the  Presbyterian  polity  in  its  actual 
working  has  many  advantages  over  episcopacy  as  the 
last  three  centuries  have  made  us  familiar  with  the 
latter  in  England.  It  would  be  a  great  gain  for  us, 
or  so  I  think,  if  something  could  be  done  to  define 
more  exactly  the  position  of  the  Bishops  in  relation 
to  their  clergy,  and  both  to  the  laity;  but  I  should  be 
very  loth  indeed  to  see  anomalies  removed,  and  con- 
sistency and  efficiency  established,  at  the  cost  of  any 
limitation  of  the  freedom  and  comprehensiveness 
which  are  the  peculiar  inheritance  of  the  Church  of 
England.  No  Nonconformist  body  would  think  of 
permitting  the  deviations  from  accepted  standards, 
the  aberrations  from  type,  which  the  Church  of  Eng- 
land permits.  They  could  not  afford  to  do  it;  and 
besides,  being  smaller,  their  membership  tends  to 
approximate  to  one  well-understood  tone  and  style, 
whatever  that  may  happen  to  be  in  each  particular 
denomination. 

The  repeated  compromises  of  the  Reformation 
period  are  no  doubt  responsible  for  the  ill-regulated 


TOWARDS  REUNION  295 


condition  of  things  which  exists  in  the  Church  of 
England  today,  and  reform  is  badly  wanted.  May  it 
be  that  the  Nonconformists  will  ultimately  help  in 
achieving  it?  They  need  not  be  afraid  of  episcopacy 
per  se.  Episcopacy  might  be  a  modified  Presbyte- 
rianism — indeed  has  been  more  than  once  in  our 
rough  island  story,  and  practically  is  in  America  at 
this  moment.  Did  not  Thomas  Cartwright  and  his 
friends  in  Elizabethan  times  succeed  in  introducing 
Presbyterianism  under  episcopal  forms  in  not  a  few 
dioceses  till  the  law  interfered  and  put  a  stop  to  it? 
It  was  the  State,  not  the  Church,  that  disappointed 
that  Puritan  program,  though  I  am  not  sorry  the 
idea  failed.  The  moral  is  that  a  reunited,  all-compre- 
hending Church  of  God  in  this  realm  of  England 
could  make  of  episcopacy  exactly  what  it  pleased. 
If  it  chose  to  make  it  stronger  it  could  do  so;  if  it 
preferred  to  see  it  modified  by  the  introduction  of  an 
advisory  council  or  otherwise,  representing  clergy 
and  laity  in  each  diocese,  it  could  do  so.  There  is 
nothing,  so  far  as  I  know,  either  in  doctrinal  prin- 
ciple or  historical  precedent  to  forbid  it.  The  one 
thing  essential  is  that  the  Bishop  should  always  or- 
dain. Let  that  be  conceded  and  all  the  rest  is  open 
to  arrangement.  It  does  not  seem  to  be  generally 
known  by  Nonconformists  that  it  is  not  the  Bishop 
only  who  lays  his  hands  upon  the  head  of  the  man 
who  receives  priest's  orders;  Bishop  and  priests  to- 
gether cooperate  in  this  solemn  act,  a  clear  recogni- 
tion of  the  fact  that  apostolic  succession  is  the  suc- 
cession of  the  priesthood. 


296      A  SPIRITUAL  PILGRIMAGE 


In  medieval  usage  there  was  a  variety  of  local 
custom  and  worship  almost  equaling  that  of  Chris- 
tendom of  the  present  day.  The  one  great  diff  erence 
between  then  and  now  was  that  the  Church  was  one 
and  consciously  felt  to  be  such  in  all  countries,  the 
great  international  bond.  Hildebrand's  failure,  the 
most  magnificent  failure  in  history  as  it  has  been 
rightly  called,  to  establish  the  City  of  God  upon 
earth,  with  all  the  secular  powers  in  immediate  sub- 
jection to  the  Holy  See,  was  the  failure  of  a  great 
conception;  perhaps  the  breakdown  prepared  the  way 
for  a  greater  and  more  spiritual  vision  of  the  same 
ideal.  As  an  international  force  Christianity  is  to- 
day, outwardly  at  least,  in  a  humiliating  position. 
Would  to  God  it  could  win  back  to  the  New  Testa- 
ment idea  of  a  world-wide  holy  nation,  a  nation  whose 
patriotism  is  not  of  this  world,  but  to  whom  is  com- 
mitted the  sublime  task  of  turning  the  kingdom  of 
this  world  into  the  kingdom  of  our  Lord  and  of  His 
Christ!  To  that  end  we  need  insist  upon  no  rigid 
uniformity  in  our  reunited  English  Church.  All  the 
elasticity  of  method  which  prevails  in  Nonconformity 
now  could  continue  to  prevail  as  in  the  English 
Church  of  six  or  seven  hundred  years  ago.  The  tol- 
erance of  the  medieval  Church  even  to  vagaries  of 
opinion  was  truly  amazing;  it  was  only  when  unity 
began  to  be  threatened  that  persecution  assumed  por- 
tentous proportions,  to  the  lasting  disgrace  of  ecclesi- 
asticism,  though  it  would  be  a  mistake  and  an  injus- 
tice to  imagine  that  ecclesiastics  alone  were  respon- 
sible for  it.   It  was  public  opinion  that  made  perse- 


TOWARDS  REUNION  297 


cution,  and  when  public  opinion  ceased  to  require  it, 
it  was  abandoned. 

It  may  further  be  remarked  that  the  only  unity 
which  the  foregoing  observations  contemplate  is 
Protestant  unity,  and  yet  I  have  called  the  Church  of 
England  Catholic.  There  is  no  inconsistency.  I  ad- 
vocate Protestant  unity  as  the  way  to  a  greater  unity 
still.  No  unity  which  excludes  Rome  or  which  Rome 
excludes  can  rightly  be  regarded  as  ultimately  satis- 
factory. There  is  nothing  sacrosanct  about  the  word 
Protestant.  All  Protestants  profess  to  be  Catholic  in 
what  they  hold  to  be  the  truer  meaning  of  the  term, 
Catholic  in  a  sense  against  which  they  believe  Rome 
to  have  offended,  Catholic  as  the  primitive  Church 
was  Catholic.  In  this  they  may  be  right  or  they  may 
be  wrong,  but  the  fact  remains  that  Protestantism 
is  in  substance  a  protest  in  favor  of  a  catholicity  which 
cannot  be  realized  in  its  fullness  without  eventual 
corporate  reunion.  From  this  point  of  view  we  need 
have  no  hesitation  in  declaring  the  Church  of  Eng- 
land Protestant,  and  she  is  Protestant  (as  I  hold) 
in  a  better  sense  than  those  churches  which  have  not 
retained  the  historic  episcopate,  for  her  protest 
against  papalism  is  a  protest  which  is  all  the  stronger 
for  being  made  by  a  Church  which  has  preserved  its 
historic  fabric  unchanged  and  maintained  its  Catholic 
tradition  unimpaired.  The  war  is  bringing  us  into 
closer  touch  with  the  great  Catholic  Eastern  Church, 
or,  to  speak  more  accurately,  with  the  several  com- 
munions comprising  it ;  and  it  now  remains  to  be  seen 
whether  a  reunited  British  Christianity — including, 


298      A  SPIRITUAL  PILGRIMAGE 


as  in  the  end  it  must,  Protestant  Christianity  through- 
out the  English-speaking  world  on  a  Catholic  basis — 
may  not  be  able  to  effect  intercommunion  with  a 
Church  as  primitive  as  Rome  can  claim  to  be  and  the 
validity  of  whose  orders  Rome  does  not  call  in  ques- 
tion. As  regards  Anglican  orders  I  would  remind 
those  who  read  these  pages  that  Rome  has  not  com- 
mitted herself  to  an  irrevocable  declaration  on  the 
subject.  The  decree  declining  to  admit  their  authen- 
ticity as  proven  was  very  carefully  as  well  as  cleverly 
drawn  when  the  matter  came  up  afresh  for  considera- 
tion a  few  years  back,  and  it  may  be  taken  as  certain 
that  the  issue  is  not  foreclosed  even  by  the  Vatican. 
This  may  seem  a  point  hardly  worth  making,  but  no 
point  is  too  small  to  be  taken  into  account  that  is 
essential  to  a  final  settlement  of  the  cause  in  dispute 
between  Anglicanism  and  Rome,  any  more  than  be- 
tween Anglicanism  and  Nonconformity.  Is  it  pre- 
sumptuous to  suggest  that  perhaps  the  same  way  out 
of  the  deadlock  may  ultimately  have  to  be  found? 
May  the  English  priesthood  one  day  be  called  upon 
to  consider  the  advisability  of  doing  in  its  turn,  for 
the  sake  of  a  larger  Christian  unity,  what  I  have  had 
the  boldness  to  recommend  the  Nonconformist  minis- 
try to  do  for  the  sake  of  healing  our  divisions  here  at 
home?  I  dare  do  no  more  than  hint  at  the  thought 
and  leave  it  to  germinate. 

From  the  window  where  I  sit  writing  these  last 
few  sentences  of  a  book  which  is  at  once  a  personal 
explanation  and  an  irenicon  I  look  out  upon  a  fair 
landscape  just  beginning  to  be  touched  by  the  chilly 


TOWARDS  REUNION  299 


hand  of  autumn.  It  is  a  dreary  day.  Great,  gloomy 
masses  of  cloud  obscure  the  whole  face  of  the  heaven; 
in  the  far  distance  it  is  raining  heavily,  and  will  be 
raining  here  again  presently.  There  is  thunder  in 
the  air,  and  the  leaden  atmosphere  presses  heavily  on 
my  brain.  Angry  gusts  of  wind  whirl  the  fallen 
leaves  along  the  garden  paths ;  the  flowers  droop,  the 
borders  within  which  they  grow  are  ragged  and  un- 
tidy ;  there  is  a  musty  green  on  brick  walls  and  gravel 
walks.  Beyond  lie  sodden  fields  wherein  a  few  sheep 
try  in  vain  to  find  a  dry  spot  for  shelter.  I  know 
what  this  all  means.  Winter  is  coming,  dark  and 
cold,  and  presently  there  will  be  no  flowers,  no  gleams 
of  sunshine,  no  sign  of  life  or  color  where  I  have  so 
long  been  accustomed  to  look  for  both.  Nevertheless 
I  remember,  and  the  knowledge  brings  comfort,  that 
a  horticulturalist  once  told  me  to  look  not  to  April 
but  to  October  for  the  springtime  of  the  year.  Un- 
derneath all  the  death  and  decay  the  new  life  is 
already  preparing  its  advent.  Within  those  falling 
petals  yonder  are  the  ripened  seeds  of  next  year's 
summer  glory.  Pinch  those  diminutive  husks,  so  like 
mummy  cases,  that  are  pushing  the  fading  leaves  off 
the  trees,  and  you  will  find  within,  beautifully  folded, 
delicately  perfect,  the  buds  that  are  to  be.  Nature 
sleeps,  but  she  is  not  idle ;  the  miracle  of  regeneration 
is  going  on  all  the  time  unhindered,  unresting,  unex- 
hausted, with  the  infinitude  of  God  behind  it.  We 
wait  in  hope — nay,  in  confidence — that  brightness, 
wealth,  and  splendor  will  come  again  with  azure  skies 
and  the  singing  of  birds. 


300      A  SPIRITUAL  PILGRIMAGE 

Will  it  be  otherwise  with  the  spiritual  welfare  of 
the  race?  Today  our  dreams  of  universal  brother- 
hood have  been  brought  to  naught,  our  expectations 
of  an  international  order  based  upon  amity  and  good- 
will are  drowned  in  a  torrent  of  blood.  The  wail  of 
the  wronged  and  stricken  rises  without  intermission 
to  the  Heaven  we  have  neglected  and  despised  in  the 
hour  of  our  prosperity  and  pride.  "Many  there  be 
that  say,  who  will  show  us  any  good?  Hath  God  for- 
gotten to  be  gracious?"  Famine,  murder,  bestiality, 
and  unfaith  stalk  hand  in  hand.  Is  religion  perish- 
ing from  the  earth;  is  the  Church  dumb  and  dead  as 
the  false  conception  of  material  well-being  that  this 
storm  of  hate  and  all  other  evil  passion  has  swept 
away?  Let  no  one  believe  it.  "The  doors  of  night 
may  be  the  gates  of  light."  The  old  is  being  de- 
strojred  that  the  new  may  be  born,  the  false  is  passing 
that  the  true  may  come  into  possession  of  its  inherit- 
ance. The  things  which  cannot  be  shaken  stand.  Let 
us  wait,  and  hope,  and  pray;  let  us  draw  near  together 
in  love  that  the  God  who  fulfills  Himself  in  many 
ways  may  cause  His  word  to  spring  up  and  grow  in 
the  hearts  of  men  once  more  and  bring  forth  fruit  to 
His  honor  and  glory.  May  the  Church  in  all  lands 
be  ready  for  the  new  and  fuller  advent  of  our  divine 
Master  who  gave  Himself  for  it  "that  He  might  pre- 
sent it  to  Himself  a  glorious  Church,  not  having  spot, 
or  wrinkle,  or  any  such  thing;  but  that  it  should  be 
holy  and  without  blemish."  "Even  so,  come,  Lord 
Jesus." 

(2) 


Date  Due 


JY  27'4C 

FACULTY. 

8? 

